


The Ascent of Stan

by hollycomb



Category: South Park
Genre: Birdwatching, Career Change, Disney, Hawaii, Kid Fic, M/M, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-18 00:48:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2329148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stan sells his small pest control company and Kyle thinks they should use some of the money to go to Hawaii, where he proceeds to grill Stan about the mid-life crisis that Stan claims he's not having while their kids frolic nearby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I realized last night that this is the one South Park fic I haven't archived on here; I'd had a feeling I was forgetting something. I wrote this back in 2012, and a lot of it was inspired by stuff that happened to me on my first trip to Hawaii. It was also inspired by the Ben Folds song "The Ascent of Stan."

Stan started worrying about his kids around the time he said, "We're in for a real treat, guys," and they looked at him like he'd just thrown their birthday cakes in the garbage when they realized that the treat he was referring to was a mockingbird who had perched outside the kitchen window and begun cycling through its extensive repertoire.  
  
"It's spring!" Stan said while they stared at him, the bird, then looked back at him in disbelief. "He's singing for a mate."  
  
"Gross," Livy said, and she was usually on his side.  
  
"Birds have sex?" Topher said. He seemed upset by the idea, and Stan had to admit that it could be pretty alarming, coming upon a couple of mourning doves who were in the act.  
  
"Everything has sex," Kyle said without looking up from the work he'd brought home, geometry tests spread all over the kitchen table. "Even plants."  
  
Topher looked to Stan for confirmation, and Stan could see that he wanted to hear that this was incorrect, so he was tempted to lie.  
  
"It's not like a tree gets up and humps another tree, though," Livy said.  
  
"Guys," Stan said, not sure who he was reprimanding. Kyle and Livy could be a little blunt around Topher at times. He was a sensitive boy.  
  
"Why don't you take Toph upstairs and explain about seeds?" Kyle said, giving Stan a pointed 'give me five minutes of quiet to finish grading this shit' stare. Stan looked at the window. The mockingbird had gone.  
  
Livy and Topher were good kids, and they could appreciate the majesty of nature at times, such as when a bad snow storm got them out of school, but in general they were both indoor types. Stan felt that he'd failed to teach them how to enjoy the outdoors, because he was usually working during the daylight hours, even on the weekends now that Southwest Exterminators had started doing commercials on local cable. Stan had hired a second employee – Kevin McCormick, which made Stan the only employer of McCormicks in South Park, since Kenny's parents were still out of work and Karen had left town years ago – but they were still scrambling, all the time, in their effort to compete with Southwest.  
  
There was a certain amount of small town loyalty that kept Stan in steady business. Kyle insisted that this had something to do with the Cows winning at regionals when Stan was quarterback during their senior year, but Stan didn't think anyone but his father and his uncle Jimbo really remembered that. For whatever reason, some people in South Park preferred not to use the national mega chain. They had a lot of older female customers, and Stan thought Kenny had something to do with that. Stan had to occasionally remind him not to have sex with their clients during house calls.  
  
"I'm not running a goddamn escort service," Stan said from time to time, though this only made Kenny grin like he'd accomplished something by getting a middle-aged divorcée to throw herself at him.  
  
Despite Kenny's miscellaneous personal attention to certain customers, Stan had never really thought Marsh Pest Control was making much of a dent in Southwest's sales, so he was surprised when Southwest offered to buy him out. His first instinct was to say no, even when Kyle did the numbers for him and told him that they were offering a fair buyout price in addition to a good position with the company.  
  
"I'd have to wear a uniform," Stan said when they were discussing it in bed, Stan lying on his back and Kyle propped up on his elbow. These were their usual postures when Kyle was trying to talk him into something.  
  
"You already wear coveralls," Kyle said.  
  
"Only on the really messy jobs. And they said they could give Kenny a job, but not Kevin—"  
  
"Is Kevin your child?" Kyle asked. "Did you have an affair with Mrs. McCormick when you were negative two years old, thereby making that guy your responsibility? No. And he's worked for you for less than a year. And he's always late. And I think he's homophobic—"  
  
"Kyle—"  
  
"And Southwest is offering great health insurance! Did you look at their package?"  
  
"We already have great health insurance," Stan said. The high school Kyle taught at was private, and he didn't make a lot, but he had job security and good benefits. The kids and Stan were all Kyle's dependents, insurance-wise.  
  
"This is better," Kyle said. "It includes vision!"  
  
"None of us wears glasses."  
  
"The kids could end up needing them, you never know. Considering they stare at computer screens all day at school and as soon as they get home they go right to the computer—"  
  
"Yeah, you know, I've been meaning to talk to you about that—"  
  
"Stan, you have to take this," Kyle said. He rested his head on Stan's chest. "For our family. It's the right thing to do. We could pay off the mortgage with what they're offering."  
  
"I know."  
  
"And the cars!"  
  
"I know, but—"  
  
"And we could take a fucking vacation once in a while. When was the last time we took the kids anywhere?"  
  
"Uh. We took them to New York to visit your brother."  
  
"That was five years ago, Stan! Topher was three!"  
  
"Alright," Stan said. He rolled toward Kyle and tucked an arm around him. "But we're doing an outdoorsy vacation."  
  
"I want to go to Hawaii," Kyle said. Stan thought of something Kenny said to tease him on occasion, when Kenny was gloating about being single while Stan answered text messages from Kyle asking when he would be home for dinner. _I think a trip to Hawaii would really improve our sex life_. Apparently it was something they'd taught Kenny in Home Ec.  
  
"Well—"  
  
"I bet I could figure out a way to do it inexpensively," Kyle said, up on his elbow again. He was smiling, and Stan was, too, listening to Kyle describe the bed and breakfast style accommodations in Hawaii that he'd apparently been researching. It was true that Hawaii would offer plenty of opportunities to get the kids excited about the natural world. By the time he fell asleep that night, Stan had agreed to sell his company, plan a trip to Hawaii, and eat Kyle out after fucking him, which was generally a celebratory, special occasion sort of thing. It felt like a special occasion, though Stan was also sad about the idea of dissolving his little company, nervous about how much plane tickets to Hawaii would cost, and too tired to get up to re-brush his teeth before passing out.  
  
Stan announced his intention to sell at a meeting with Southwest the following afternoon, and when he came home he found Kyle bent over his laptop and drinking Harbucks chai, something he normally abstained from because of the price. The kids were still at school, and Stan had to admit, despite his lingering doubts, that it was nice to be home on a quiet afternoon rather than crawling around in someone's basement, pulling rotting baseboards away to reveal a glittering burst of cockroaches. Southwest had promoted him to a managerial position that meant he wouldn't have to do much hands-on work. It meant consenting to their not always environmentally friendly policies, which made Stan uneasy, but he had worked too hard and for too long to not be able to come home early and nuzzle his face against Kyle's neck on the occasional afternoon. Stan had always been jealous of the hour Kyle had to himself at the house between his last class and picking up the kids from school.  
  
"What's that?" Stan asks, resting his cheek against Kyle's and looking at the screen. "Disney?"  
  
"A Disney hotel," Kyle said, practically quivering with delight. "In Hawaii! They've just built it."  
  
"Mhmm. Then the rooms will be something like five hundred bucks a night, I guess? I thought we were going to do this inexpensively."  
  
"Well, we are, but look, look at this place! We could afford at least two nights here, don't you think? At the very end of the trip? After staying in, you know, less glamorous places? That would make us appreciate the Disney majesty even more!"  
  
Stan didn't share Kyle's love of Disney. The kids, of course, did. Like Kyle, they both tended to turn their noses up at any accommodations that didn't cost upwards of three hundred dollars a night. It was one reason they didn't often travel. Stan would be perfectly happy in a tent.  
  
"The place does look pretty nice," Stan said, not wanting to dampen Kyle's spirits. "But let's think about it before we tell the kids."  
  
"Oh – well." Kyle turned to give him a sheepish look. "I already texted a link to Livy."  
  
"Kyle, Jesus. She's not supposed to have her phone during school."  
  
"I know, but it's public school, Stan! I don't want her there among those animals without some form of contact with the outside world. Anyway, she sent me back a text that said 'O-M-G' with a smiley face, it was really touching. You know she's been pretty gloomy since she turned thirteen, and just, how great would it be to see her excited about something like this, not trying to act like a world weary teenager for a little while?"  
  
"That would be good," Stan said. Livy had all of Kyle's seriousness and plenty of Stan's cynicism, a combination Stan was beginning to worry about.  
  
"And Toph!" Kyle said. "He would flip. Look, there's a lazy river, and a freaking volcano in the middle of the pool—"  
  
"How much?" Stan asked.  
  
"Oh, well." Kyle did a bit of clicking around. "Hmm. Seems like, well, if we do two double beds, partial ocean view – that's necessary, don't you think? If we're in Hawaii, with a balcony? We should be looking at the damn ocean at least partially, right?"  
  
"Um." Stan was going to make the point that since the ocean would be right outside their door, they could just walk down and get as close to it as they liked at any time, but then he thought he'd better not. "Yeah, you're right."  
  
"Okay, so. Six hundred a night, about."  
  
"Jesus Christ."  
  
"Yes, but that's only two nights, so. It'll probably be fifteen hundred after parking and taxes and all that, but it's Hawaii, Stan, and it's Disney, you always get your money's worth with Disney, and – think of how excited the kids would be!"  
  
"I know," Stan said. "But if we save this until the end of the trip they're going to be asking how much longer until we get to Disney the whole time."  
  
"No, no. They'll be _looking forward_ to it. Which is good!"  
  
They had forty-five minutes until Kyle had to leave to pick up the kids, so they headed up to the bedroom without discussion, undressing on the way there. Kyle held onto the headboard while Stan fucked him, and they both took advantage of the ability to be loud, though they were still nowhere near as loud as they had been in college, when someone drew a giant dick on Stan's dorm room door after Kyle had spent five drunken minutes shouting about how big it was while Stan fucked him at a similarly shameless volume. Now they were only bold enough not to whisper, and they mostly stuck to moaning each other's names, the door shut and locked, just in case.  
  
"I didn't want to say so before you'd had your meeting," Kyle said when they were lying together afterward, curled around each other while late afternoon noise filtered in through the windows, birds twittering and cars passing. "But I really wanted you to do this for yourself," Kyle said.  
  
"The sale?" Stan said.  
  
"Yes," Kyle said. He was smoothing Stan's hair, kissing his drowsy eyelids. "You've been so overworked, you're tired all the time. I knew you'd say no if I told you to do this for yourself, because you'd rather humanely save mice or whatever, but you've got to start treating yourself humanely, too. I don't want what happened to my father – you know."  
  
Stan hugged Kyle closer. He knew: Gerald had survived a bad heart attack three years ago. He'd had to retire early, because the doctors blamed work-related stress. The biggest downside for Stan was that Gerald had become very 'spiritual' in recent years and was constantly haranguing them to pick a religion for the kids. At the moment the Broflovski-Marsh family lazily celebrated a few Christian and a few Jewish holidays, and answered most of their kids' questions about God agnostically.  
  
"I know," Stan said. "It'll stress me out to take orders from these guys. But this is nice." He yawned and rubbed his face against Kyle's neck.  
  
"It is," Kyle said. He leaned over to nibble on Stan's ear, something he always did when he was jittery with delight that Stan was responsible for. "And Hawaii, oh, God. You don't even know how excited I am."  
  
"Me too," Stan said. "I'll have to start researching hikes. I bet there are some great ones, you know, in the jungle."  
  
"The rainforest," Kyle corrected. "And – yes. Maybe you can get the kids excited about birds. They've got plenty of colorful ones there, I'm sure."  
  
"Snorkeling, too," Stan said. He was starting to fall asleep, envisioning the kids with fish identification charts, pointing out the ones they'd seen in the water and learning the difference between coronet fish and trumpet fish. Stan had majored in marine biology in college, and he was occasionally able to impress the kids by recalling the scientific names for animals.  
  
When he woke up Kyle was gone and the sun was starting to go down. He rolled onto his back and allowed himself to wake up slowly, feeling like he hadn't done so since he was a teenager. Shelly had offered to be inseminated with Kyle's sperm when they were only twenty-six, during her post-divorce, strangely generous phase, and they'd jumped at the chance, though they both still felt too young for kids. Five years later, Terrance Mephesto claimed to have invented a way to mutate sperm into an egg, and Kyle said he was sure that it was a lie, but also decided it was worth jerking off into a cup to find out for sure. Wendy volunteered to be their surrogate when it seemed to have worked, partly because Mephesto paid her enough to settle her law school debt. Kyle was anxious throughout her pregnancy, afraid that Mephesto had secretly used some random, substandard egg, but Topher's eyes were Kyle's exactly, and everything else about him was Stan, except for his ability to shrug off the misfortune of others when it suited him. Livy was the one who'd inherited Stan's sometimes crippling empathy, despite the fact that she was Shelly's daughter, genetically speaking. Shelly and Livy didn't have a lot in common and weren't very close. When Livy got her period Stan had suggested that Shelly might speak to her, and Kyle had been very offended. He'd done it all himself: the talk, the sanitary product shopping, and the bonding over junk food and bad television, as if he was on the same cycle.  
  
“So we're going to Disney World?” Topher said when Stan came downstairs. He crashed into Stan's legs as soon as he stepped off the bottom step, headed for the kitchen.  
  
“We're going to Hawaii,” Kyle said. He was at the kitchen counter, cracking pistachios out of their shells.  
  
“But there's a Disney World there?” Topher asked, looking up at Stan. Livy snorted. She was at the table with her homework, her wild red hair piled up on top of her head in the post-school bun that Stan found heart-wrenching and adorable.  
  
“It's not a theme park, Toph,” Livy said. “It's a hotel with a volcano pool.”  
  
“What's a volcano pool?” Topher asked, still holding on to Stan's pant leg as he walked into the kitchen. Topher tended to get nervous about his own excitement at times, and in general Stan thought he was a little immature for his age, clinging to his babyhood because they all spoiled him, even Livy.  
  
“A volcano pool is a pool with a fake volcano in the middle, I guess,” Stan said. “But there are real volcanoes in Hawaii, too. And they're not at Disney World.”  
  
“We're not doing volcanoes,” Kyle said.  
  
“What?” Stan came to stand beside him at the counter, wondering when he'd bought pistachios. “Why not?”  
  
“Because there aren't any on Oahu,” Kyle said. “If you want to take another week off work and go to one of the other islands, too, we can—”  
  
“Yeah!” Livy said. “I want to see volcanoes. Real ones.”  
  
“Aren't they on fire?” Topher asked.  
  
“You go in a helicopter,” Livy said. “And it's lava, not fire.”  
  
“Well,” Stan said. “I can only get a week off—”  
  
“Right, so no volcanoes,” Kyle said. “But there's plenty to see on Oahu, trust me. Our itinerary is packed already.”  
  
“Our itinerary?” Stan said. “Didn't we just decide to do this, like. Two days ago?”  
  
Kyle scoffed, papery pistachio bits flying as he cracked another one open.  
  
“I could plan a invasion of Cuba in two days,” he said. “If I had to.”  
  
He was endlessly patting himself on the back for the Cuba thing. Stan was pretty sure Kyle had never been to an interview without mentioning it, even when he was sixteen and trying to get a job tearing tickets at the movie theater.  
  
Stan examined Kyle's itinerary later that night, and wrote down 'hike' in a few places in the margins, drawing arrows to indicate where hikes could be squeezed in, between shopping in Waikiki and a trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center that didn't seem necessary. He did some research on Kyle's laptop while Kyle graded tests, and filled in the names of a few specific hikes.  
  
“Topher can't do anything too steep,” Kyle said when he reviewed Stan's changes.  
  
“I know,” Stan said. “I picked easy hikes.”  
  
Kyle sighed hard anyway.  
  
“You know how they are,” he said.  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Your children! Remember Crystal Lake?”  
  
Stan didn't like to. It was a few years back, an afternoon of picnicking and other outdoorsy activities that Stan had planned for a rare day off of work. Livy had been in a terrible pre-adolescent funk, and Topher whined about everything, claiming that ants were biting him throughout their picnic. Though they couldn't find a mark on him, Kyle freaked out about this and they ended up cutting the whole thing short, to Livy's great joy.  
  
“But this is Hawaii,” Stan said. “They'll be enchanted.”  
  
“Yeah, by the fake volcano and the water slide,” Kyle said. He leaned over to nip at Stan's neck apologetically when Stan stared down at the laptop. “I want to have sex on this trip,” Kyle said, whispering. “At Disney, we can leave them down at the pool, and Livy can babysit Toph while you fuck my greedy ass in that six hundred dollar room.”  
  
Stan tried not to be charmed by this, but he was. He grinned over at Kyle and let Kyle lick his way into his mouth. He sort of knew what was coming when Kyle said, “You're my volcano, dude. Give me your lava, Stan, so warm and red and – how did the song go?”  
  
“Wet,” Stan said, and he gave Kyle all the lava he had in him, quietly, until they dropped to sleep.  
  
The three months before the vacation were busy and confusing. Stan immediately disliked working for Southwest, but he didn't want to tell Kyle that, and certainly not the kids, so he was persistently in a not-exactly-bad mood that felt fake. Kyle obsessed over the vacation, planning virtually every meal they would have and reading Stan articles from the _Times_ about the specific places where Obama had spent time in Oahu as a child. He made notes about the shave ice huts that were listed in the “Don't Miss ...” columns of his travel books and booked a family surfing lesson, something Stan suspected he might regret.  
  
Work wasn't horrible, just different in ways that Stan didn't like. He mostly stayed behind a desk, and every time he opened his window he would come back from his lunch break to find it closed, until finally he got an email from their office manager about the company policy on not opening windows. Stan always felt exhausted at the end of the day, but not like he had before, when his muscles would ache from squatting down to examine infestations and he would come home dying for a hot shower that would remake him into someone clean enough for Kyle's dinner table. Now he left work not really sure what he'd done all day, or how those vague activities had been so draining.  
  
“How do you like this?” Stan asked Kenny one night when they went out for beers after work. “The new company?”  
  
“It's work,” Kenny said with a shrug, and he drank from his beer. His responsibilities were virtually the same as they had been when he worked for Stan: go out on house calls, spray for bugs, go again when the bugs come back. “I'm getting less pussy,” he said.  
  
“Yeah, working for Marsh Pest Control was much more impressive,” Stan said. He was being sarcastic, but he felt sad, because yeah, it had been. Their coveralls had been less dorky, more authentically workmanlike.  
  
“I miss driving around with you,” Kenny said. “Why don't you guys have me over for dinner?”  
  
“It's the end of the semester,” Stan said. “Kyle's really busy. We'll do more stuff together this summer.”  
  
“Aren't you going to Hawaii?”  
  
“Yeah, for a week. Not the whole summer.” He studied Kenny for a moment, watching him drink beer. “Do you think we're independently wealthy now or something?”  
  
“You paid off your house and your cars,” Kenny said. “I don't know anyone else who's done that. Not even Token.”  
  
“Yeah, because Token lives in a ridiculous penthouse in the city and has, like. Five cars. We've got a three bedroom split level in South Park, and we drive old Nissans.”  
  
“Still,” Kenny said.  
  
“How's Kevin?” Stan asked, feeling guilty, though Kevin had yawned six times while Stan explained why he had to let him go, and Stan had some pretty strong evidence that he'd gotten in the habit of having a few beers with lunch well before the company was sold.  
  
“Kevin is what he is,” Kenny said, and he slapped Stan's shoulder. “Don't worry about him. I'm proud of you.”  
  
“You are? Because I kind of compromised my principles, they don't use environmentally responsible products—”  
  
“Hey,” Kenny said. “Your kids are environmentally responsible products. You take care of them, that's awesome. And if you don't like Southwest, why don't you just quit?”  
  
“And do what?”  
  
“Homemake,” Kenny said. Stan snorted.  
  
“Yeah, Kyle would love that,” he said.  
  
“He probably would,” Kenny said. “He wouldn't have to cook.”  
  
Stan didn't mention that he already did most of the cooking, because Kenny knew that.  
  
“You don't understand marriage,” Stan said.  
  
“I'll drink to that!” Kenny said, and he toasted himself.  
  
Once they got within two weeks of the trip the days seemed to speed by, and Stan felt unprepared as they finished packing the night before their flight to Honolulu, waiting for their pizza to arrive. The kids were rambunctious, and Livy had consented to play the 'platform game' with Topher, jumping from one piece of furniture in the living room to the other. If they touched the carpet they lost a life, but they gave themselves infinite lives and had played the game for so long that they skillfully moved from ottoman to coffee table to the back of the couch without getting anywhere near the floor. It was a pointless game that annoyed Kyle a lot, but Stan had convinced Kyle to let them go on with it at least until they finished packing the main suitcases, because he hadn't seen them play anything together in a long time.  
  
“I think we should leave here at two thirty,” Kyle said.  
  
“In the morning?”  
  
“Yes! The flight's at six, and it's an hour to the airport at best, then you have to check in—”  
  
“I think four would be okay,” Stan said.  
  
“Better safe than sorry,” Kyle said. “Let's at least wake up at two thirty. The kids will be groggy, and we'll have to wrangle all the luggage—”  
  
“Okay, okay.”  
  
“Aren't you excited?” Kyle asked, looking a little hurt.  
  
“Yeah, dude, totally,” Stan said, and it was true. He was just tired, and not looking forward to the long plane ride. Kyle had gotten a discount airfare that included a two hour layover in Los Angeles, and the kids had a tendency to beg for goodies nonstop while they were waiting for anything in the vicinity of junky tourist shops and food vendors.  
  
“Look what we ordered,” Kyle said when the pizza arrived, and he opened the lid to show Stan the toppings: ham and pineapple. Livy giggled and Stan thought it was probably her idea. He smiled, his mood greatly improved by Hawaiian pizza. Topher complained about the toppings at the dinner table, and Kyle picked them off for him.  
  
Stan and Kyle were both restless that night, trying to sleep and constantly rearranging themselves around each other. Stan kept thinking he heard Livy sneaking downstairs to the family computer, something she'd been doing in recent months. It was password-protected and Kyle insisted that she would never guess their password – Notw1th0utmya-nis – but Stan was afraid that she was smart enough to somehow get around it.  
  
“God,” Kyle said at one o'clock in the morning, and he rolled over to clutch at Stan. “I'm so excited.”  
  
“Me too,” Stan said, still fully awake. He hoped this would translate to being able to sleep on the plane, though one of them would have to stay awake to keep an eye on the kids. Stan didn't trust Livy to public restrooms unless he was able watch the door until she emerged, and something about the dark cabin of an airplane and those tiny closet restrooms seemed particularly sinister. “Do you think I've gotten anxious?” Stan asked, pulling Kyle to him more snugly. “As I've gotten older?”  
  
“Only about the kids,” Kyle said.  
  
“Yeah, but they're everything. I mean, they're mostly what I think about. So if I'm anxious about them—”  
  
“Is everything okay at work?”  
  
“No – what? Yeah. What's that got to do with it?”  
  
“You seem tense since you started with Southwest. You know what, never mind. I promised myself I wouldn't ask you about this until after the vacation. Don't listen to me, I'm talking in my sleep.”  
  
“You sound pretty awake.” Stan was quiet for a moment, listening to the clock on the wall that sometimes kept him up. Kyle claimed that the regularity of the ticking helped him sleep. “Work's fine,” Stan said. “I mean, it's good. Less dirty.”  
  
“Hmm,” Kyle said, clearly unconvinced. Stan pretended to sleep, rolling toward Kyle and burying his face in Kyle's hair. Eventually the decades-old familiarity of that frizzy padding against his face helped him sleep for a full thirty minute stretch.  
  
The alarm went off at two thirty, and Kyle got out of bed like a shot had been fired. He began puttering around the room and in the bathroom, tucking last minute toiletries into their bags. Stan slid out of bed and went to wake the kids, starting with Topher, who was harder to rouse.  
  
“Why's it dark?” Topher asked, putting on his baby voice.  
  
“You know why,” Stan said. “It's early, the sun's not up yet. C'mon, buddy, we've got a plane to catch.”  
  
“I've never been on a plane,” Topher said, though he knew that he had. So it would be one of these mornings. Stan pulled Topher's covers back and he whined, drilling his little fists into his eyes.  
  
“You can sleep in the car on the way to the airport,” Stan said, rubbing his chest. “And on the plane.”  
  
“Won't it be too noisy?” Topher asked, blinking his puffy eyes at Stan, and this was a sincere question.  
  
“Nope,” Stan said. “At first it's noisy, when you takeoff, but then it's just a kind of hum. Dude, we talked about this last night. You were on a plane when you were five. Remember, you watched cartoons on Daddy's computer?”  
  
“Oh, yeah,” Topher said, and he groaned as Stan pulled him up into a sitting position.  
  
“Remember,” Stan said, resorting to extremes, “We're going to Disney in Hawaii!”  
  
“I thought it was just a volcano,” Topher said, but he was perking up a little already.  
  
“No, there's lots of stuff,” Stan said, familiar with the features of the hotel from Kyle's many mentions of them. “There's an aquarium, and a lagoon where you can paddle these little boats, and a lazy river.”  
  
“What's a lazy river?” Topher was smiling like he already knew it would be great.  
  
“You know, like at the water park, where you sit in an inner rube and ride around in a circle? And there's a water slide, too. All kinds of stuff. And also? We're gonna go on some really neat hikes.”  
  
“At Disney World?” He looked skeptical.  
  
“No – bud, remember, it's not Disney World, it's just a little miniature Disney – thing. Resort. And that's at the end of the trip. There's going to be a bunch of cool stuff before that. So get up, okay, get dressed. I'm gonna go wake your sister up.”  
  
Livy was already awake, sitting at her vanity. She ripped a headband with a plastic flower out of her hair when she saw Stan in the mirror, and she went bright red as she turned toward him, as if he'd caught her smoking a cigarette.  
  
“I couldn't sleep,” she said. She was wearing a dress Kyle had bought her last week, sleeveless and a little too short with a loud flower print. Stan walked over and kissed the top of her head.  
  
“Me either,” he said. “Ready to go?”  
  
She was, already wearing her platforms, which had two inch heels that made Stan nervous.  
  
“Did you bring sneakers?” he asked as he helped her collect her bags.  
  
“No,” she said. “What do I need sneakers for?”  
  
“For hiking,” Stan said, disheartened. “C'mon, grab a pair. You've got room in here,” he said, unzipping her bookbag.  
  
“Dad!” she said, rushing over to stop him. “That's for the plane.”  
  
“Sorry, sorry. Don't forget socks.”  
  
South Park was dark and silent as they drove through town, toward the highway. Stan was familiar with the motionless menace of the town very late at night, and he wasn't nostalgic for the middle of the night house calls. It felt good to be leaving town; he'd always appreciated a temporary escape from South Park. He thought of his and Kyle's honeymoon, the early morning flight to Florida and the way Kyle had nervously over-packed. They'd gone to Orlando, to Disney World.  
  
The kids both fell asleep on the way to Denver, and Stan rubbed Kyle's leg while he drove. Kyle was wearing Stan's old fleece jacket from college, the collar touching his cheek as he sunk into it sleepily.  
  
“You look cute,” Stan said, and Kyle snorted.  
  
“I feel like I forgot something,” he said.  
  
“You always feel that way, but you never do. If we forgot something, we can buy it when we get there.”  
  
“Oh, yeah,” Kyle said, and he smiled. “I love that we have money now,” he said, whispering. “Is that sick to say?”  
  
“No,” Stan said. “Everybody loves – that.”  
  
“Even you?”  
  
“Look at me, I'm going to Hawaii. And you're happy, so, yeah. I love it.”  
  
“I don't think you love it,” Kyle said, studying him. “It's like – but, no. We'll talk about it after the trip.”  
  
“Talk about what, Kyle?”  
  
“Nothing! Forget it.” He reached over and squeezed Stan's hand. “I just want you to have a good time.”  
  
“I will,” Stan promised.  
  
“We'll hike,” Kyle said. “And do – outdoor things.”  
  
“Hell yes we will,” Stan said.  
  
The kids were grumpy and half-asleep during the check-in process, but by the time they'd all made it through security they were energized and asking questions about the big scanning machines, which they'd been excited to experience.  
  
“Some people think it's an invasion of privacy,” Stan said, and Kyle gave him a look that communicated pretty clearly that he didn't want his thirteen-year-old daughter knowing that some creep at the airport could see through her clothes.  
  
“But they have to check for guns and things,” Livy said.  
  
“Guns?” Topher said.  
  
“Like so they don't take over the plane,” Livy said. “Like 9/11.”  
  
“Where the planes blew up?” Topher said, grabbing for the hem of Kyle's jacket.  
  
“But that doesn't happen anymore,” Livy said before Kyle or Stan could warn her to change the subject. “Because of those machines.”  
  
Stan wanted to offer a different viewpoint, because he hated those machines and what they represented, but Topher seemed comforted, so he left it at that. They made it to their gate with an hour and a half to spare, and Kyle settled in with his laptop while Stan took the kids to buy breakfast. He let them have sugary junk, because it was a special occasion, and got Kyle a bagel with cream cheese on the side. He ate it over his laptop, seeds dropping down and getting stuck between the keys.  
  
“Remember in college,” Stan said, “When ants lived in your keyboard?”  
  
“The ant problem in that dorm was not my fault,” Kyle said.  
  
The nervous excitement of the kids as they boarded the plane made Stan happy. They had four seats in a row with an aisle between the first and second, and Livy begged to be allowed to sit in her own row. Stan allowed it, because the lady next to her was grandmotherly. He sat across the aisle from her and Kyle took the middle seat, allowing Topher to plaster himself to the window. Livy craned her neck to see as the plane began to taxi, and she jumped up to take the middle seat when Kyle offered. Stan ended up in the seat across the aisle, and he felt immediately lonely, wanting the kids and Kyle leaning against him. Livy and Topher watched with rapt attention as the plane left the ground, and Stan reached across the aisle to touch Kyle's elbow. Kyle made a kiss face at him.  
  
“Thank you for this,” he said, mouthing it over the roar of the engine.  
  
“You're welcome,” Stan said, taken off guard, and Kyle laughed.  
  
Kyle and the kids were asleep within an hour of the flight, and Stan kept an eye on them while they flopped against each other, trying to get comfortable. When the drink cart came he wanted a beer, but he didn't let himself order one. The stewardess flirted with him as she poured his cranberry juice over ice, asking if he was going to Hawaii with anyone special and eying the grandma next to him, who had begun snoring softly.  
  
“Those three,” Stan said, nodding to his family. “My husband and my kids.”  
  
“Oh!” She tilted her head a little and smiled in the slightly condescending way that strangers often did when they found out that he was a nesting gay. “How sweet. Your first time?”  
  
“Yeah, first time for all of us.”  
  
“That's terrific,” she said, moving on, and Stan got the feeling he always did after this sort of exchange, a kind of guilty self-consciousness.  
  
Blissfully, the grandma did not try to speak to him during the flight, and the two hours to Los Angeles passed quickly. Livy was energetic as soon as she was off the plane, peering around at people in the airport as if a celebrity was going to brush through the crowd with a rolling suitcase any moment. Topher was ornery, and he wanted to be carried. Stan picked him up and let him put his head on his shoulder, though he was really too old for it. They were back on a plane within an hour and a half, after the kids had eaten more junk. This plane was bigger, and they were able to sit in a row together in the middle, a pudgy guy in a pink shirt on the far end of the row. Stan sat next to him, providing a buffer for the rest of the family. Livy sat beside him, Topher beside her, with Kyle on the aisle. Stan gave him a few longing looks, wanting to sleep for a few hours with his face in Kyle's hair, but Kyle mostly didn't notice, leaning over his laptop while Topher slept with his head on Kyle's thigh.  
  
“Now I've been to L.A.,” Livy said. “Sort of.”  
  
“We could go for real sometime,” Stan said. “And to the real Disney World,” he said, because he'd been wistful about their honeymoon there all morning. After graduating from college they'd gotten married right away, despite their parents' protestations. The Broflovskis had never thought the boy from down the street was really good enough for Kyle in the long run, and the Marshes through Kyle was high maintenance and rude. Stan and Kyle had a sense that the whole world was against them when they flew to New York to get married, and it made their elopement more romantic. Sex felt newly rebellious and important, and Stan suspected that part of the reason Kyle wanted to honeymoon in Orlando was the lack of nightlife. They were in by ten o'clock every night, trying to keep quiet while they fucked, for the sake of any slumbering children in the neighboring rooms.  
  
“Are we rich now?” Livy asked after Stan had paid for the beer he figured he had earned after seven hours of flight time. He laughed and glanced over at Kyle to see if he'd heard that. Kyle was still typing, either working on one of the grant proposals he ghost wrote for extra money or the memoir about being a gay father in a small mountain town that he occasionally threatened to write.  
  
“We're not rich,” Stan said. He drank some beer, feeling bad about it; he should have waited until they landed to start drinking, even if he was already technically on vacation.  
  
“But you work for that big company now,” Livy said. “And we're going on this trip.”  
  
“We have a little extra money from when I sold my company,” Stan said. “That's all.”  
  
“I'm glad you sold it,” Livy said.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Uh-huh. I'd wake up sometimes when you left in the middle of the night. And I couldn't sleep until you were back.”  
  
“You never told me that,” Stan said. “Why couldn't you sleep?”  
  
“I like it better when you're there,” she said, shrugging. “It feels less like someone might come in and murder us.”  
  
“Honey. That's not going to happen. And you know – if anybody ever tried to hurt you or your brother, Daddy wouldn't let them. You haven't seen him when he's provoked. He's small, but he's fierce.”  
  
“Fierce,” Livy said, grinning like the word was funny. They both looked over at Kyle and laughed. He was typing kind of fiercely, frowning at the screen. He heard them laughing and looked up, his fingers still moving.  
  
“What?” he said.  
  
“I was telling Liv that you're an ass kicker,” Stan said.  
  
“I already knew that about him,” Livy said, and Stan wasn't sure if she was being a smart ass or trying to protect Kyle's feelings.  
  
“You should have seen him when we were kids,” Stan said. “When he'd go nuts on Cartman. He was half Cartman's size, but Kyle always sent him home crying.”  
  
“Oh, like that was hard!” Kyle said. “All you had to do was touch his cheek and he'd scream like you'd cut off his arm.”  
  
“Really?” Livy said, grinning widely. She loved stories about Cartman's patheticness. Erica Cartman was one of her best friends, and Livy was always eager to go over to the Cartman house if Eric was at work, because Butters would bake for them and let them watch trash on TV, but she loathed Cartman as much as Kyle did, if not more, because he was 'loud and stupid,' according to her.  
  
Livy fell asleep an hour later, spilled across Stan's lap. He was feeling dozy himself after the beer, and Kyle seemed to be losing his energy, too, typing slower and more infrequently. Stan watched their plane's progress on the monitor across from his seat. They were over the ocean, far from everything. He thought of palm trees in the wind and closed his eyes. He planned on opening every possible window in their rented room and leaving them open at night to hear the ocean while he slept, though they'd only be close enough to hear it on their last two nights, at Disney. Before that, they were staying in the rent-able basement of someone's house in Aiea, a suburb outside of Honolulu. Still, Stan felt he would be able to hear the ocean in the weight of the air or something.  
  
“Hey,” he said to Kyle when they were getting close to landing, the flight attendants turning on the lights and serving coffee. It was two o'clock in the afternoon down on the islands. Back in Colorado it was dinnertime. Kyle looked over at him and raised his eyebrows. “How've you been?” Stan asked, because they'd been too far apart to talk for most of the flight.  
  
“My back hurts,” Kyle said. “Should I get a massage? At Disney? They have a spa. It's supposed to be really nice, brand new.”  
  
“I could give you a back rub,” Stan said.  
  
“It's not that kind of trip,” Kyle said, because back rubs from Stan always resulted in a lot of moaning and drooling, until Kyle lifted his ass off the bed and asked for another sort of massage.  
  
“True,” Stan said.  
  
The mood in the cabin as the flight attendants prepared for landing was infectiously cheerful, Disney-like. All of the flight attendants were wearing flowers in their hair and plastic leis. Stan planned on buying a real one for Livy once they'd arrived, and for Kyle and Topher, too, if they wanted them. He suspected they would, though Topher was already sensitive about 'girly' things and Kyle always had been.  
  
They wandered the airport after deplaning, blearily searching for the rental car desk, Stan also keeping an eye out for leis. When he finally found a cart full of them the attendant was slightly surly and the leis cost forty bucks each, so Stan was glad when Topher refused one. Kyle said he would take one, but after picking one out he put on it around Stan's neck.  
  
“Dad can't wear that!” Topher said as Kyle dug out his camera.  
  
“How come?” Kyle asked.  
  
“Because,” Topher said, and he left it at that.  
  
“I like it,” Stan said, pulling Livy against him while Kyle stepped back to take a picture. “We match.”  
  
“Yeah,” Livy said. “And they smell awesome.”  
  
“You look adorable,” Kyle said, “Both of you.” He took an excessive amount of pictures before heading to the rental car pick up. Topher was sour while Kyle signed for the car, but he grinned when Stan put his lei around his neck, and giggled when Livy added hers on top of it.  
  
“I can barely see!” Topher said, running his fingers carefully over the flowers. Kyle gasped with delight when he turned from the desk, and he fumbled to get his camera out before Topher could decide he was done with this. Topher mugged girlishly in a way that made Stan wonder if he was too young to have some sort of sensitivity about gender stereotypes. Kyle and Livy just seemed to think it was hilarious, so Stan decided that he did, too.  
  
Outside, the day was clear and bright, and palm trees lined the otherwise drab rental car lot. Kyle picked out a huge cranberry Cadillac.  
  
“This thing is going to eat gas like crazy,” Stan said as they loaded up the trunk.  
  
“So?” Kyle said, and he wilted when Stan gave him a surprised look. “Sorry,” he said. “It's just – I don't know. It's got a satellite radio! And what did you want me to get, the Leaf?” They had a few of them parked out front, hooked up to electric chargers. “Those things are tiny,” Kyle said. He'd always liked big things: theme parks, extravagant soaking tubs in expensive hotel rooms, Stan's cock. Sometimes, usually while drunk, he confessed that he wouldn't be as satisfied with his life if Stan had a more average-sized dick.  
  
“I _need_ this,” he would say, wrapping his hand around it, or grabbing it through Stan's jeans if it wasn't yet on display.  
  
“You don't know that,” Stan would say, though one of his most deeply held beliefs since adolescence was that Kyle needed his cock very badly. “It's the only one you've had.”  
  
“You've spoiled me for all others,” Kyle would say, or something equally flattering.  
  
The Cadillac handled very differently from Stan's Altima, and he felt awkward driving it, like he was piloting a boat on land. The drive into Aiea was somewhat ugly until they started going up the hill where their rented room was located. There was a view of Pearl Harbor, and the water sparkled in the late afternoon sun, dotted with old battleships.  
  
“Was Pearl Harbor sort of like 9/11?” Livy asked.  
  
“Don't look at me,” Kyle said. “I wasn't around for that one.”  
  
“It was sort of like that,” Stan said, not in the mood for them to get bitchy with each other. Kyle and Livy had a similar temperament that didn't always mix well. “It was shocking, and it started – well, it got us involved in a war.”  
  
“Are we staying in a war place?” Topher asked, whining as if anticipating museums.  
  
“No,” Kyle said. “We're staying in a guest room at this house with a great view – and we'll have our own pool!”  
  
“With a slide?” Topher asked.  
  
“Not yet,” Kyle said. “The slides come later.”  
  
The house was small-looking from the street, but when the owner led them down toward the room they were renting, Stan was impressed. The backyard was beautifully landscaped, birds darting across the pool deck, flying back and forth between flowering trees. The view of the harbor was as awesome as the reviews of the place had promised, and the apartment itself was fine, though a little dated-looking, and the smell was of someone else's house, not anonymous like a hotel room. It was basically one big room with a kitchen, a pull out couch bed and another double bed against the wall, near a seemingly out of commission fireplace.  
  
“You should find anything you might need here,” their host said as she led them into the large bathroom, gesturing to an array of bath products that were lined up on the counter. Stan could feel Kyle stiffen at the sight of half-used toiletries left behind by previous guests, sand caked around the caps of the sunscreen bottles, but he was the one who'd picked the place. The kids were in the kitchen popping open cans of juice that were provided as part of the complimentary breakfast items.  
  
“Is it what you expected?” the host asked as she led them back out into the main room. She was a loopy-seeming lady in her fifties with long, bleached hair.  
  
“Yeah, it's great,” Stan said before Kyle could indicate otherwise. “Thanks so much.”  
  
“Just let me know if you need anything,” she said, and she headed for the door. “Your children are beautiful, by the way,” she added, turning, and Stan didn't get the feeling she was wondering who the mother was, which was unusual.  
  
“You didn't have to thank her,” Kyle said when she was gone. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was peering around the room as Livy and Topher tore through the suitcases, looking for their bathing suits. “She's not doing us a favor. We're paying to stay here – almost two hundred a night.” He made a face, glancing at the faux wood pattern on the linoleum countertops.  
  
“I think it's perfect,” Stan said. He put his hands on Kyle's shoulders and led him over to the sliding glass doors. “Look at that view, man.”  
  
“The TV is small,” Topher said, half undressed. He was disturbingly immodest.  
  
“We won't be watching much TV,” Stan said, hopefully.  
  
“Change in the bathroom!” Kyle said, shooing Topher in that direction when he unbuttoned his jeans. “Your sister doesn't want to see your butt.”  
  
They let the kids swim for a while before venturing out to buy provisions. Stan was exhausted after the long flight, trying to identify the birds that were singing from the bushes in the yard. Kyle was taking pictures of the view from every angle.  
  
“I'm surprised they're not more tired,” Stan said, watching Topher dive into the pool. “Tell him he's not allowed to do flips off the side,” Stan shouted to Livy as Topher swam toward her underwater. He had always been an enthusiastic swimmer, and Kyle thought he should join the neighborhood swim team, but Stan didn't like the idea of Topher hanging around in locker rooms with adult coaches. Not having been in Stan's boy scout troop, Kyle was less paranoid about this sort of thing.  
  
“Well,” Kyle said when he'd finished taking pictures. “What should we do first?”  
  
“Shopping, I guess,” Stan said, thinking of beer, or maybe rum. When they first had Livy he'd resolved to never drink in front of her, but that hadn't lasted long, and he usually had a few beers with dinner, sometimes another after the kids had gone to bed. He had yet to be wasted in front of them, and he knew he wasn't his father, but sometimes he felt a little too close to Randy for comfort when he overindulged at a barbecue or on Christmas.  
  
“What's the matter?” Kyle asked when Stan stood at the porch railing, watching the boats in the harbor.  
  
“Nothing,” Stan said, turning to him. “Why do you keep asking me that?”  
  
“Do I?” Kyle wrapped his arms around Stan from behind, resting his face between Stan's shoulder blades. “I don't know. I feel like you're still sitting two seats away from me.”  
  
“Well, I'm not,” Stan said, distressed by this. "I'm just a little jet-lagged."  
  
The kids' second wind had begun to fade by the time they'd dried off and changed, and neither of them could quite decide if they were hungry or not. Kyle wanted to stop at some Korean fast food place that was supposed to be good, and the kids both picked at their noodles listlessly. It was almost four o'clock, an odd time for such a heavy meal, and Stan wasn't loving his chicken and vegetable dish. He wanted to go back to the room and fall asleep with all the windows open, wrapped around Kyle while the kids dozed on the pull-out couch, but Kyle was determined that everyone at least stay awake until nightfall so they could get adjusted to their new time zone.  
  
"Oh shit," he said as they were throwing away their lunch trash. "I forgot to check if the yogurt she had at the house was shitty or not."  
  
"I think it was some shitty shit," Topher said, grinning.  
  
"Hey," Stan said. "What's the rule?"  
  
"I can't say shit if you're listening," Topher said.  
  
"Or any other adults," Kyle said. "Especially teachers and my mother. Alright, um. I'll get some Chobani at Target if they have it."  
  
They ended up spending over two hundred dollars at Target, because Kyle had forgotten to pack long-sleeved shirts to protect the kids' skin during snorkeling, and they all needed tight-fitting shoes with rubber bottoms for navigating underwater rocks, and better sunscreen than what was provided in the room, and Kyle thought it was a good idea to go ahead and get gift boxes of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts for everyone who would expect a souvenir. Stan got some rum and a sketchy-looking plastic bottle of mai tai mix.  
  
"Should I make you one?" he asked Kyle when they were back at the room, the sun starting to sink a bit lower over the harbor. The kids were watching TV, lying on what would presumably be Stan and Kyle's bed. They were both zombie-like and starting to drift off. Stan was mixing a mai tai, hoping Kyle would join him.  
  
"Sure," Kyle said. "But – that mix. The color looks toxic."  
  
"Yeah, I was too tired to scrounge around for fruit juice, or whatever you use to make the real ones," Stan said, and he got another glass down, then chose a different one when he saw that the first one had some dishwasher damage cloudiness that Kyle wouldn't like.  
  
"Dude," Kyle said, wincing after sipping the drink Stan had made for him. "Strong."  
  
"You think?" Stan could mostly taste the sour tang of the mix. "Want to sit outside with me?" he asked, and Kyle smiled.  
  
"Too bad there's no hammock," Kyle said as they stepped out onto the patio together.  
  
"Yeah, but we don't need one," Stan said. He kicked off his flip flops and sat down at the edge of the pool, putting his legs in the water. Kyle was wearing pants, self-conscious about the paleness of his legs and his bright red leg hair. He took his shoes and socks off and started to roll his pants up.  
  
"Oh, fuck it," he said, and took them off entirely, sitting beside Stan in his t-shirt and boxer shorts, legs in the water. Stan laughed and drew him in close, proud of him. Just the sound of the ice clinking in his glass calmed him down, which also freaked him out in a more distant way. They were in paradise, he was with the love of his life and their perfect, adoring children, and he still felt like he needed the drink in his hand, already calculating how many he could get out of that bottle if Kyle even half kept pace with him. He'd been like this in Orlando, too, and in New York five years ago. His anxiety doubled when he was away from home, even if he had nothing more to do than sit and watch the sunset with Kyle.  
  
"Maybe Southwest will transfer you to Hawaii," Kyle said, nuzzling at Stan's neck.  
  
"I wouldn't be opposed," Stan said. "The kids would miss their friends, though. And I guess I'd miss Kenny, you know, and Butters."  
  
"Ugh, whatever," Kyle said. "I'm going to pretend this house is ours, okay? This view, anyway, and this patio. The inside is a little – sticky."  
  
"Sticky?"  
  
"Well – used," Kyle said. "You know how I feel about used things."  
  
"Kyle, it's somebody's house. What did you expect?"  
  
"It's fine," Kyle said, waving his hand. He took a drink. "Disney will be _spotless_."  
  
"I was thinking about our honeymoon all day," Stan said. He drank, too, then gave Kyle a moony grin that he returned, swooning in to press his cheek to Stan's.  
  
"Yeah?" Kyle said, softly. "How come?"  
  
"'Cause it's the last time I remember driving to the airport early in the morning like that. And, just. Me and you haven't been in a tropical climate since then, I don't think."  
  
"That's true." Kyle looked over his shoulder to check on the kids, and Stan did, too. They were still lying on the bed, seemingly asleep. "God," Kyle said, turning back to Stan. "You must have fucked me twenty times on that trip. And we were only there for, what? Three days?"  
  
"Something like that," Stan said. "I was so happy, dude."  
  
"Aren't you happy now?" Kyle asked, pulling back a little.  
  
"Of course – Kyle, what – why do you keep acting like I'm not?"  
  
"I just." Kyle touched Stan's cheek, where he already had substantial stubble. "I feel like I blackmailed you." He winced and drank from his mai tai, nearly draining it. "Oh, fuck, here, see – I didn't want to get into this—"  
  
"Blackmailed me?" Stan said. "Uh? How?"  
  
"That's the wrong word," Kyle said, shaking his head. "You made these things so strong." He drank a little more, the melty stuff at the bottom. "Just – I feel like I made you sell your company, and it's like the Gift of the Magi, but I just – I got my combs without cutting off my hair. And you lost your pocket watch, so you don't care about the fancy chain. Which you bought for yourself, I guess."  
  
"Honey," Stan said, tugging him closer. "You're my pocket watch and my chain. Or, it's like – you're the hair to my comb. There's nothing for me to do, um, if I can't comb you."  
  
"Oh, Jesus," Kyle said. "I think we're both a little out of it. Let's suspend serious conservation."  
  
"Awesome, yes. So – what are we doing tomorrow?"  
  
"Lanikai Beach! It's supposed to be beautiful, and calm, so the kids can swim. We just have to go super early, you know, so we can get parking."  
  
"Shouldn't be a problem," Stan said. "I'm ready to drop right now."  
  
"The kids are in our bed," Kyle said. He hooked a finger into the collar of Stan's t-shirt and yanked him forward, moaning. "Stan, um," he said, "I want you, like. I know we can't. I just want you to know that I'm going to bed dreaming of your dick, okay?"  
  
"Jesus," Stan said. "Me too. Um, of you ass, and stuff, I mean."  
  
"Drunk asshole," Kyle said, grinning, and Stan tried not to take it too personally, because it was an endearment. He'd never shared his anxiety about drinking with Kyle; he didn't want to worry him. "Shit, why didn't we get something with two separate rooms?" Kyle asked.  
  
"Because we're not rich," Stan said. "Livy asked me if we were."  
  
"Really! I remember asking my dad that, once. After Kenny had some particularly poor kid moment that I couldn't relate to."  
  
"He wants us to invite him to dinner," Stan said, wishing for another drink so that they could keep talking like this, recklessly and without consequence. Kyle snorted.  
  
"Freeloader," he said.  
  
"Don't be mean."  
  
"Stan, that's what he is! He's lucky you employ him. Though, shit, I guess you don't anymore."  
  
"Nope," Stan said. "But he's okay. You wouldn't miss Kenny if Southwest transferred me somewhere else?"  
  
"What's to miss? I'm just afraid he'll start hitting on Livy in five years."  
  
"Kyle!" Stan was horrified at the thought, especially when he considered how likely it was. "God, don't even say that."  
  
"Well! Someone's got to think of these things."  
  
They made out briefly before returning to the kids, who were both asleep. Stan was glad for this, because he had something resembling a boner from the lingering taste of Kyle's mouth. He took a shower to sober up and tried jerking off, but he lost his erection fast, alone in the shower and too aware of the kids' presence outside the closed bathroom door. When he walked back into the main room, dressed in sweatpants and a fresh t-shirt, Kyle was lying between the kids on the bed, eating chocolate-covered macadamia nuts from a can of them that was resting on his stomach. The kids were clutching at his arms, still asleep. Some cooking show was on TV.  
  
"I don't think I want a real dinner," Kyle said. "Just these nuts."  
  
Stan smirked, refraining from making the obvious joke. Kyle seemed to hear it anyway, and he rolled his eyes. Outside, the clouds had gone black against the blaze of the sunset. Stan opened all the windows, and the sliding glass door that led out to the patio, putting the screen in place to keep bugs out. He returned to the bed and settled in behind Topher, scooting up until he could rest his chin on Kyle's shoulder.  
  
"This is one of those cake competitions," Kyle said, whispering. He was referring to the TV show, where three people were transferring a giant wheel of sheet cake from a pan to a tray. Stan closed his eyes, not thinking of another drink until he acknowledged the fact that he didn't really want one.


	2. Chapter 2

  
They all slept in the big bed that night, something they hadn't done since the nights following Gerald's heart attack, when Kyle was quiet in a way that frightened all of them. It had been a comfort then, but still mostly a bad time, and this was much nicer. Stan woke every time someone got out of bed: first Kyle, then Livy, both departures followed by a toilet flush. Stan heard them whispering in the kitchen; he smelled sunscreen and orange juice. He sat up and saw that it was pale blue outside, very early, the birds in the bushes singing with a kind of muted wakefulness. He slid out of bed and went to the bathroom himself, letting Topher sleep.  
  
“Feeling better today?” Kyle asked when Stan joined them in the kitchen, as if he'd been ill.  
  
“Yes,” Stan said, because he was.   
  
“What was wrong?” Livy asked.  
  
“Lingering ennui,” Kyle said, and she made a face like he was describing something to do with sex.   
  
“Jet lag,” Stan said. “Is what he means.”   
  
“I had that, too,” Livy said, adjusting her hair. It was up in a ponytail, a big, fluffy mass of curls that reminded Stan of Kyle as a kid in a way that broke his heart and made him happy – a raw, untouched Kyle, before his mother let him get anything resembling a stylish haircut. On Livy it actually looked stylish, if not intentional, because her face was so small. She had a dainty chin like Stan's mother, and it 'worked with the hair,' as Kyle said.   
  
They got Topher up and lathered him with sunscreen, and after packing towels, drinks, books, and more sunscreen, they were off, their GPS navigating the rented car through sleepy neighborhood streets that looked unglamorous except for the palm trees, and something else that Stan couldn't name. Their shabbiness was unlike that of the houses in South Park, maybe because the residents might be surfing somewhere, and their reason for not caring about the weedy yard might be joyful, not just exhausting.   
  
Stan still felt a little out of it, as if whatever they were doing was something that would actually be happening at a future time. They parked too far from the beach and had to walk up a steep, grassy hill toward the road, where they walked past much nicer houses that looked out on the ocean. People who were walking their dogs smiled as they walked past, and Stan felt judged by their friendliness, as if these actually rich people were assuming this was his pale little family's first and only time in Hawaii, and as if they knew that the Marshlovskis had sacrificed financially to be here witnessing them doing something as mundane as walking their rich dogs. Stan had sacrificed, but probably not in the way they thought. _I owned a company_ , he wanted to say. _I was the leading employer of McCormicks in South Park_.  
  
The beach changed his mood. He hadn't been to the ocean in a long time, and this was different from the sections of the Pacific that he'd seen. The ocean was calm but seemed unconquered, even with a few kayaks cutting through the water, far from the shore. The sand was fine and white, powdery. Kyle selected the spot to set up the umbrella they had borrowed from the house, and Stan followed Topher and Livy to the water.   
  
“That's like a movie,” Topher said, putting his hands on his hips as he took in the scenery. There were two small islands in the distance, dark against the sunrise.  
  
“Are there sharks?” Livy asked, and Stan realized only then that she hadn't been in the ocean since she was four, when they took her to Galveston with Stan's parents, and that Topher never had. They were both hesitating like they weren't sure they were allowed to get in.  
  
“I don't think there are sharks,” Stan said, because it seemed impossible in such calm waters. “But stay close to me.” He turned to see Kyle taking pictures of them and waved him over.  
  
The water was warmer than Stan had expected – tropical, one of those things, like Kyle's ass, that he'd once thought he'd never be lucky enough to personally experience. He was more accustomed to wading into Stark's Pond, which was icy until mid-July. He watched Topher swim out ahead of him, Livy lingering close. Kyle draped his arms over Stan's shoulders when they were in up to their chests.  
  
“Get back here!” Kyle called to Topher.   
  
“It's shallow, though!” Topher said, but he returned, dog-paddling clumsily, as if the ocean had made him forget that he was a competent swimmer.   
  
“There's a tide,” Kyle said, grabbing for Topher's arm when he was close enough. “You've never been in the ocean before.”   
  
“It hurts my eyes,” Topher said, but he was grinning. Stan was proud of him; he usually had a very low pain threshold.   
  
“It's salt,” Livy said. “That's so weird. I forgot that taste.”   
  
“You remember that trip to Galveston?” Kyle asked, still hanging on Stan's back. Stan reached around to grab Kyle's hips, holding him there.   
  
“I don't really remember,” Livy said. “But I remember – this. The weird taste.”   
  
“Everybody remembers their first time in the ocean,” Stan said. “Intrinsically.”   
  
“Oh, Jesus,” Kyle said. “So, Toph, what do you think?”  
  
“Are we going to surf now?” he asked, hanging on Stan, too.   
  
“That's tomorrow,” Kyle said. “In a place where there's more waves. They say it's safe for kids, though.”   
  
“What if we can't stand up on the board?” Livy asked. Stan was worried about this, too, mostly about what would happen if Kyle couldn't. He was ridiculously competitive, and not being able to master some new skill – especially if Stan could – might darken him for days.   
  
“They guarantee that you'll be able to do it,” Kyle said. “This surfing company.” Livy looked skeptical.   
  
They spent most of the day getting in and out of the water, Kyle lounging under the umbrella and telling Livy that she'd regret it when she braved the sun. They had the same delicate skin, not incredibly pale but very prone to sunburn, and Stan irritated Livy with a fresh layer of sunscreen every time she came out of the water. The beach got more crowded as the morning brightened, with more dog walkers along the shore and other tourists setting up their towels. One guy had an elaborate camera with a tripod, and he spent almost an hour taking pictures of his tanned, tiny girlfriend while she struck flirty poses in the water, a red hibiscus flower in her hair. Stan noticed Livy watching them, and he thought of Kyle in high school, the way he would get when Kenny crossed the locker room with shameless blond glory.   
  
“Why is this hard?” Topher asked when Stan was helping him attempt to make a sandcastle.   
  
“You need some real tools,” Stan said. “We'll get you a bucket and a shovel before we go to the next beach. And this sand quality isn't great for construction.”  
  
“We're going to another one after this?” Topher asked, whining a little.   
  
“Well, not today,” Stan said. “You don't like it?”  
  
“The sand feels itchy,” he said. “Can I get a boogie board, too?”  
  
“Uh, maybe. We'll see how much they are.”   
  
Stan still felt a little on edge, between Topher's growing boredom and Livy's preoccupation with the photogenic girl. Livy wasn't allowed to wear a bikini until she was fifteen. They'd told her they would also consider getting her a laptop of her own at that age, depending on her grades, but Stan didn't like the idea. He imagined everything on the internet flooding her little bedroom like dark water.   
  
“You okay?” Stan asked her while Topher continued with his sandcastle. Kyle appeared to be asleep under the umbrella, and his legs had become exposed, but Stan didn't want to wake him yet.   
  
“I'm good,” Livy said. “I think I'm burning, though.”   
  
“Here, get under the umbrella,” Stan said.   
  
“Daddy's hogging it.”   
  
“You can both fit,” Stan said, but he woke Kyle anyway. Kyle sat up and looked around tiredly, his eyes puffy like he'd been asleep for an hour. Stan considered it and thought he possibly had. He pulled Kyle against him, wrapping his arms around him. Stan was only halfway under the umbrella, but it didn't matter; he rarely burned. Livy moved into the shade, sighing.  
  
“What's the point of being at the beach if you have to sit in the shade?” she asked.   
  
“The beauty of nature,” Kyle said. “Oh, shit, ow,” he said when he stretched his legs out in the sand, lifting them again. “Were my legs in the sun?”  
  
“A little,” Stan said.   
  
“Stan!”   
  
“Sorry, dude, I just noticed! So I woke you.”   
  
“Goddammit,” Kyle said. “The first day and I'm already burned.”   
  
They left an hour later. Stan wanted to stay, but he couldn't really say why, except that if he was alone he could have stayed on the beach until the sun started to sink and his skin was humming from exposure.   
  
“The camera's dead, anyway,” Kyle said as they packed up their things. “I forgot to charge the battery last night.”   
  
Back at the house they took turns in the shower, except for Topher, who hadn't tired of swimming and was tearing back and forth across the pool, doing flips underwater. Kyle made sandwiches with the supplies they'd bought at Target, and Stan ate one on the patio, sitting on the hot stone pavement and watching Topher swim. Kyle was hissing every time he moved; he was very dramatic about sun burn, but Stan couldn't relate and knew he therefore shouldn't judge. Livy had some pinkness on her nose and shoulders, but nothing serious.   
  
“How come they get burned like that?” Topher asked when he surfaced, hanging on to the edge of the pool and panting.   
  
“They have a different skin type,” Stan said. “Most red heads have pale skin. Daddy's isn't _that_ pale, though. Not the freckly-pale kind.”   
  
“Gingers,” Topher said.   
  
“Did you hear that from Erica's dad?” Topher sometimes went over to the Cartman house with Livy, because, like all children, he adored Butters and his generosity with baked goods.   
  
“I don't know,” Topher said, and he seemed sincere. “Am I from both of you?”   
  
“What?”  
  
“From both of you, am I from you and Daddy? And Livy's only from Daddy and aunt Shelly?”  
  
“Who told you that?” Stan asked, alarmed.   
  
“Livy,” Topher said.   
  
“Oh.” Stan glanced over his shoulder, but Livy seemed to still be in the shower, and Kyle was distracted by cursing his sun burn. “Well, no,” Stan said. “I mean, biologically – but you're both ours. Equally.”   
  
“I don't really care,” Topher said, and he slipped back under the water. Stan believed that he didn't, but his heart was beating fast, because apparently Livy did. He'd always hoped it wouldn't bother her, but he supposed he'd been fooling himself there.   
  
Kyle hadn't planned anything else until dinner, and Stan thought of suggesting a hike on a shady trail, but he was really too tired. He waited until four o'clock to mix himself a drink.  
  
“No, thanks,” Kyle said when Stan offered. He was at the little desk beside the bed, checking email. “That stuff makes my tongue hurt.”  
  
“The rum?”   
  
“No, the other stuff, that mixer. Or both, maybe. Can you get me a glass of wine, though?”  
  
Stan did, from the Target-brand box of it that Kyle had purchased the day before. Kyle would take two hours to drink one glass – with an ice cube, please – and Stan would feel guilty when he made his second drink, usually less so when he made a third.  
  
“Did you have fun today?” Stan asked Livy when they were on the patio watching the sunset. She was romantic about sunsets, like him. Kyle only ever seemed interested in them if he was coping a feel while he watched one with Stan.   
  
“It was fun,” Livy said. “Really pretty. This is really pretty,” she said, referring to the sunset. Lights were coming on down in the harbor, and orange, spotlight-sized sun beams still blasted up at the sky from behind the mountains.   
  
“You know,” Stan said, and then realized he shouldn't bring up what Topher had said after two and a half drinks, even if he'd made them weak. “Don't worry about surfing,” he said instead. “I think you'll be good.”   
  
“I'm not usually good at sports,” she said.   
  
“You – we never made you play sports. You never wanted to.”   
  
“I know,” she said. “'Cause I'm not that good at them. We do units at school.”   
  
“Oh. Well, you've never done a surfing unit. You never know.”   
  
“Topher's better at that kind of stuff,” she said. She eyed Stan's drink. “Can I have a sip?”  
  
“No,” he said. “You'd hate it, anyway. Here, just smell it and you'll see.”   
  
She did, and winced. Stan was pleased. He put an arm around her and set the drink on the porch railing. He'd always liked the look of condensation circles on wood. It reminded him of drinking with Kenny in high school, on the short, rotting porch in the McCormicks' backyard. Stan would confess about Kyle and Kenny would attempt to convince him that Kyle was his for the taking. Kyle had been so hard back then, closed off in a lot of ways, some that were Stan's fault. There was a time when Stan couldn't imagine him leaning into even a friendly touch.   
  
“Were you good at sports?” Livy asked. “You were,” she said before he could decide. “Football.”   
  
“I mostly did that for my dad,” Stan said, then wondered if that was the wrong thing to say. “I liked it, though, sometimes. I liked when Kyle came to the games.”   
  
“He's no good at sports,” Livy said. “Like me.”  
  
“Not true. He was good at basketball. Well, he was okay. He just got distracted when he got older. You know, by math and stuff. He won some math award when we were in high school.”  
  
“Twelfth grade Math Wizards, first place,” Livy said. “The trophy's in the computer room.”   
  
“Oh, right. Well, I was really jealous of him. Math was hard for me.”   
  
“I think I'd rather be a surfer girl than a math wizard,” Livy said. “But I won't be.”   
  
“Unless we move to Hawaii!” Stan said.   
  
“Are we?” Livy asked, and she looked frightened.   
  
“No, no,” Stan said, rubbing her back. “I'm joking.”   
  
“I guess, yeah, that's dumb,” she said, glancing back at the house. “This place isn't really expensive-looking. Not like I thought.”   
  
“Well, I told you, we're not rich. The patio's really nice, though, isn't it?”  
  
“Uh-huh. Did you see those birds with the red butts this morning?”  
  
He had; they discussed red-vented bulbuls and Stan was pretty much in heaven. He'd researched them in his efforts to prepare himself for the common birds of Oahu, and he had answers for all of her questions.  
  
They had dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant that was highly recommend on Yelp. It was awful, and Stan wasn't normally picky about Italian. They ordered calamari before they'd tried anything else, and it arrived looking and tasting like mozzarella sticks.   
  
“What the hell?” Kyle said. “Those people look like locals!” he said, indicating a big party of people who could theoretically be of Hawaiian descent. “What are they doing eating here? Everything's just a mini casserole dish coated with burned cheese.”   
  
“I like it!” Topher said. He was a fussy eater, but tended to decide he was happy with the food if the rest of the family wasn't. He was already halfway done with a big bowl of tortellini with red sauce.   
  
“It's not that bad,” Stan said, poking at his lasagna. “Just – too salty.”   
  
“Mine's okay,” Livy said. She'd gotten a chicken caesar salad, something she ordered whenever possible, no matter what the cuisine was.   
  
“I shouldn't have ordered freaking seafood cannelloni after that calamari disaster,” Kyle said, poking at his mostly untouched plate. “But we're at the _sea_ , for God's sake.”   
  
When the waiter cleared the plates they lied and said everything was fine. Kyle made up a story about staying in a hotel with no refrigerator when refusing takeout boxes, and Livy had to stop Topher from correcting him. Kyle was in a bad mood on the drive home, and he had another glass from his box of wine after they'd arrived.   
  
“Let's go to bed,” he said at nine o'clock. “We have to get up early and drive to the North Shore tomorrow. The surf lesson's at ten. Hey, guys,” Kyle said when Livy and Topher gravitated toward the bed across from the TV, both of them sleepy and dressed in pajamas. “I'm going to make up the couch bed for you tonight.”   
  
“They can have that one,” Stan said, because the couch bed faced the sliding glass doors and the pool; they would be able to see the sky and feel the breeze through the screen door. He didn't care about lying across from the TV. Kyle sighed as the kids climbed into the bigger bed.   
  
“My legs are throbbing,” Kyle whispered when they were on the couch bed together, holding each other under the blankets. The bed was uncomfortable, but Kyle seemed too preoccupied with his sunburn to notice.   
  
“Want me to rub more aloe on them?” Stan whispered.   
  
“No,” Kyle said. “You can't rub me,” he said, speaking into Stan's ear. “I wouldn't make it.”   
  
Stan smiled, and they fell asleep that way, thinking about the things they weren't doing. Dogs started barking down in the valley around two o'clock in the morning, and Stan got up to close the sliding glass door. Kyle gravitated to him when he returned to bed. They always spooned persistently when they were away from home.  
  
In the morning, Stan woke to the sound of Livy shutting the bathroom door too hard. She was wearing her bathing suit and a skirt with ruffles when she emerged, pulling her hair up into a messy ponytail. Kyle was quickly awake when Stan stirred, and he asked about the time. Topher was harder to wake than he had been the day before.  
  
“It's like going to school time,” he complained, referring to the hour.   
  
“But we're going surfing!” Stan said, pulling Topher's t-shirt off so he could start on his sunscreen.   
  
“I don't want to,” Topher said.   
  
“Well, too bad, we paid in advance.” That was Kyle, from the kitchen, his voice muffled by Chobani.   
  
“What would you do if you could do anything today?” Stan asked. Surfing in Hawaii should be high on anyone's list, he thought.   
  
“The movies,” Topher said.  
  
“They film movies here,” Stan said. “Because it's so amazing. They don't even have to make sets.”  
  
“Can we watch them filming the movies?” Topher asked.   
  
“No,” Kyle said.  
  
“They're not working on anything right now,” Stan said. “But that would be cool if they were!”   
  
He wasn't sure why he was being so indulgent, and he could see on Kyle's face that it wasn't appreciated. Stan just wanted everyone to be happy on this trip, and they couldn't seem to all manage it simultaneously. He thought of his disastrous family vacations as a kid: Randy lost on some back country road, his mother tearfully trying to keep everyone calm, Shelly with her headphones plugged in, scowling out the window and doing her best to pretend she was alone. Stan would write letters to Kyle while the car bumped along toward some campsite where none of them particularly wanted to arrive. Kyle always made him promise to write, and Stan hardly ever got a chance to mail the letters. He'd deliver them by hand when he got home: _Kyle, I wish you were here, because this sucks_. Stan rarely knew what to say after that, so he would usually just list the things that were sucking at the moment.  
  
The drive to North Shore was beautiful, along the Kamehameha Highway, cutting through lush mountains. They could see the other shore after thirty minutes, deep blue in the distance. They drove past pineapple fields and various other farmlands, and Stan was surprised how peaceful everything seemed. Apparently most of the touristy noise on Oahu was restricted to Waikiki, which Kyle had only devoted half a day to. Stan appreciated that, though in the end he'd only managed to arrange for one hike and one morning at a nature preserve.   
  
They met their surf instructors in a gas station parking lot. They were both young women, one petite and sleepy-eyed and the other a more traditional-looking surf girl with curves that were muffining over the top of her jean shorts and long hair that had been dyed a kind of dirty-looking maroon color.   
  
“Colorado,” she said, nodding. “Far out.”   
  
They got back in their car and followed behind the surf girls' beater, which had six surf boards strapped to its roof in a neat stack, two of them child-sized. Stan felt anxious, fairly categorized as a middle-aged suburbanite having a manufactured adventure, and he consoled himself by deciding that the surfers probably gave him some credit for being part of a non-traditional family.   
  
“Did you ever think you might do this?” Stan asked Kyle when they were carrying their borrowed surf boards to a beach that was accessible from a pine-straw strewn path through some tall trees. The kids were up ahead with the surf girls, who were helping them carry their boards.   
  
“Do what?” Kyle asked.  
  
“Move somewhere beautiful and just figure out how to live once you got there,” Stan said. “Like these kids are.”   
  
“I don't know why you ask me questions you already know the answers to,” Kyle said.  
  
“Not even after college?” Stan asked.   
  
“No,” Kyle sad. “Did you?”  
  
“I considered it,” Stan said. “Like, just ending up in Amsterdam or something.”   
  
“That sounds miserable,” Kyle said. “Are you wishing you'd tried it?”   
  
“Not really,” Stan said. He sighed. “I just – I do admire people like that. I guess they're brave.”   
  
“I don't know if I trust these two with my kids,” Kyle said. “The mousy one seems stoned.”   
  
“It's not like they're taking the kids away for the weekend,” Stan said. “We'll be right there.”   
  
“Hippies,” Kyle said. “Their car looked filthy.”   
  
“This was your idea,” Stan said.   
  
“Why are you always saying that, like I don't know?”  
  
“I'm not – why are we fighting?”  
  
“We're not!”   
  
They arrived at the little beach and clammed up. The surf girls already had the kids dressed in their life vests and stretched out their boards, and they were demonstrating how to paddle. Topher was really into it, flinging sand. Livy seemed uncertain. It killed Stan to see her turning into a self-conscious teenager. He felt like it had been happening since she was nine years old.   
  
Stan and Kyle were given a demonstration of how to paddle while the kids watched. Kyle was quiet and intent on getting his form right. Stan was told by the curvy surf girl that his stance on the board was goofy.  
  
“That's an actual term,” she said when he laughed. “Like Tony Hawk.”   
  
Stan hadn't heard that name since he was eight, when he owned a skateboard and helped Kyle make ramps. Their adventures with skateboarding were brief. Kyle hadn't been very good at it. Kenny had been amazing and fearless, and one afternoon Kyle left with Cartman while Stan cheered Kenny on. Stan had barely known what was happening; he looked up and Kyle was gone.   
  
On his fifth or sixth leap up into standing position on the board Stan felt something tweak hard in his chest, and by the time he was lying on his stomach again he knew it was his old football injury. He'd pulled a muscle in his chest sophomore year, and it had never healed properly. He wasn't supposed to run or lift anything heavy for a month, and his doctor had joked that he could have his girlfriend carry his books for him. Stan had immediately thought of Kyle, though they weren't together then. Stan carried his books himself, and pushed to get back in the game before the month was over, which was probably why he could aggravate his still-tender chest muscle by doing something as simple as rolling over in bed, or reaching for the shampoo at an awkward angle, or pulling Kyle on top of him during sex.   
  
Kyle and Topher were paired with the mousy girl, and Stan and Livy got the curvy one, whose name Stan had already forgotten. He groaned when he started paddling; it hurt a lot worse than the practice paddling had.   
  
“Dad?” Livy said. She was sitting on the front of her board, the surf girl stretched out behind her, paddling for her.   
  
“I pulled a muscle, I think,” Stan said.  
  
“You hurt yourself already?” the surf girl asked, incredulous.   
  
“It's an old injury,” he said. “From football.”   
  
“Do you need to get out?” she asked.   
  
“No,” Stan said, though he felt like he had a knife between his ribs. “I'm okay.”   
  
He was in agony, but also in paradise, padding out into the ocean, every coastal view behind him like a perfect postcard. There were other surfers out where the waves were breaking, some beginners and some guys who looked more serious. A few were farther out, and one was so far that Stan thought he might not be coming back. Stan felt slower and more unwieldy than everyone who was presently in the ocean, and he winced every time he paddled, trying to keep his chest from pressing flat against the board.   
  
He had barely made it to where the surf girl and Livy were waiting for him when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A guy on a surf board, standing, riding toward the shore: Kyle. He'd got it on his first try. Topher tried next, and was able to come to a wobbly crouch before falling over sideways.   
  
“Let's do you first,” the surf girl said to Livy, and Stan felt vaguely insulted, as if she was implying that he was less prepared. Stan braced himself. He hated to see his kids fail. Topher was as bad at school as Livy was at sports. He wasn't dumb, they just couldn't make him care. Every variation of willfulness that Stan and Kyle had to pass down had been firmly inherited by Topher.   
  
Stan was holding his breath when the surf girl pushed the back of Livy's board, shoving her forward along with the wave. She almost stood, floundered and fell off.   
  
“That was good for a first try,” the surf girl said to Stan. Livy was far ahead of them, being drawn toward shore by the wave as it continued to unspool. “So, go ahead and get in position,” the girl said when Stan just sat there straddling his board, glad to have a break from straining his chest muscles.   
  
He was a spectacular failure at surfing from start to finish. The first five times or so he just pushed the board out from under him with his weight as he tried to stand, listing sideways. He hit the water hard every time he fell off, and it struck his chest like concrete, making the pain worse.   
  
“I don't know what my problem is,” Stan said to Kyle as they paddled back together after yet another successful ride for Kyle. He looked so proud of himself that Stan didn't want to tell him about the chest muscle issue yet, because Kyle would worry, and it would dampen his sense of victory over the waves.   
  
“Just don't rush, maybe,” Kyle said.   
  
“You're shorter,” Stan said. “You and the kids.” They had begun to do well, too, standing more often than not.   
  
“I thought you would be good at this,” Kyle said. “Considering all that yoga.”  
  
“I took like, two yoga classes five years ago.”  
  
“Yeah, but still. You just – maybe it's your footing?”   
  
Stan was able to stand a few times, briefly, before their hour's worth of lessons were up. He was relieved to be able to go in to shore, never happier to be out of a body of water.   
  
“I hurt my chest wall,” he said to Kyle as they helped carry the boards back to the car. Kyle knew the chest wall injury well. Sophomore year, before it was diagnosed, Stan had noticed the pain whenever his heart beat fast, which it frequently did when Kyle was around. He'd been afraid he was dying of a heart condition, because all of the things he'd buried there over the years, that he'd weighed his heart down with too many secrets. Kyle had taken his blood pressure with a cuff that they kept at the house with the rest of Kyle's various medical equipment. It had been a normal reading, but Kyle still made him tell the team trainer about it. Stan had a vague, irrational fear that they would find a damning image of Kyle when they did tests on his heart, and that they would say there was nothing they could do about that.   
  
“How bad is it?” Kyle asked, touching Stan's back after they'd passed the boards to the surf girls.  
  
“What's wrong?” Livy asked. She was always immediately involved when there was something to worry about.   
  
“Nothing, I just pulled something here,” Stan said, gesturing to his sternum.   
  
“Did you see that one where I rode it almost all the way?” Topher asked, bouncing over to them.  
  
“Shut up!” Livy said. “Dad's hurt.”   
  
“What?” Topher's face fell like he'd just heard a terminal diagnosis. He worried less often than Livy, but when he did he jumped straight into panic.   
  
“It's nothing,” Stan said, putting his hand on top of Topher's head. “I just tweaked a muscle while were surfing. That was fun, though, right?”  
  
“Yeah!” Topher said, assuaged. “Can we do it again when it's just us? Without those ladies?”  
  
“We don't have boards,” Kyle said. “But we rented snorkel equipment. That's what we're doing after lunch, okay? That'll be easier on your chest,” he said to Stan, rubbing his shoulder as they headed toward the public restrooms, where the surf girls were rinsing themselves off under outdoor showers.   
  
They cleaned up as best they could, and Kyle put antibacterial ointment on everyone's hands while they waited in line at a shrimp truck near the gas station where they'd met the surf girls.   
  
“I hope I wasn't supposed to tip them,” Kyle said after they'd ordered and taken a spot at one of the card tables out back, which were covered by a tent that kept out the sun, flies buzzing around some massive trashcans nearby.   
  
“I'm sure it's fine,” Stan said. The surf girls had hugged them as if they'd all shared something profound. Stan shifted his shoulders around while Kyle complained about tipping culture and how confusing it could be. His range of motion was pretty limited if he didn't want to suffer a sudden, stabbing pain in his chest, but no amount of moving hurt as badly as lying on the surf board had.   
  
Their lunch took a long time to emerge from the truck, and the kids were entertained by some zebra doves who had gotten into the trash cans and were sitting inside an open styrofoam container while they munched on discarded french fries and garlic bread. Stan thought it was kind of sad.   
  
“They should really cover those trash cans,” he said.  
  
“This place is disgusting,” Kyle said. “If I'd seen this dining area before we ordered I would have gone somewhere else.”   
  
The food was good when it finally arrived, but they had no utensils to eat the garlic shrimp with, and not enough napkins. Stan couldn't stop overhearing the obnoxious chatter of the group of tourist families at the next table, and he gave them a dirty look when two of the moms walked over to a nearby tree and picked flowers for their hair, but no one seemed to notice.  
  
“This place where we're going snorkeling is supposed to be pretty uncrowded, right?” he said as Kyle attempted to clean Topher up after he'd eaten. He'd gotten almost as greasy as the trashcan doves.   
  
“Yeah, they say it's pretty secluded,” Kyle said. “So that'll be nice!”   
  
“Isn't it called Shark's Cove?” Livy said.  
  
“Yep,” Kyle said. “No, sir!” he said when Topher reached for Kyle's unfinished Diet Coke. “You've already had a whole can of soda. You're _shaking_ , honey, God. No more caffeine.”   
  
“So,” Livy said, looking at Stan. “There's sharks?”  
  
“No,” Stan said, though he wasn't really sure. “I mean, Kyle – there aren't sharks, right?”  
  
“Would I bring our children to a shark infested area? No. That's the first thing it says in all the guidebooks. 'There are no sharks in Shark's Cove.'”   
  
“Then how come they called it that?” Topher asked.  
  
“I don't know,” Kyle said, sighing. “I guess they were uneducated or something.”   
  
Shark's Cove was neither secluded nor uncrowded. It was right along the coastal highway, and the parking lot was slammed. They cruised for ten minutes before they found a spot, and Stan wasn't in the mood for snorkeling by the time they were unpacking the equipment from the trunk.   
  
“Why are there so many people?” Topher asked, making a face in the general direction of the crowd. It wasn't just tourists. Local families had set up picnics along the grassy area that looked over the beach and the cove, where numerous snorkels cut through the water.   
  
“I guess the word is out,” Kyle said. “It's the internet, maybe. There are no well-kept secrets anymore.”  
  
“I don't see how this could have ever been a secret,” Stan said. “It's right next to the road.”  
  
“Well, it said it was much less crowded than Hanauma Bay!” Kyle said. “I'm sorry, Jesus, how was I supposed to know?”  
  
“Don't get mad,” Livy said.  
  
“Get even!” Topher said, and he bound toward the rocky cove, shrieking at the temperature of the sand against his bare feet, his snorkel and mask swinging in his hand. Kyle groaned.  
  
“Go get him before he kills himself,” he said, and Stan took off. Running hurt, the muscles in his chest pulling tight over his pounding heart, but he didn't slow down until he'd caught up to Topher.  
  
“Hey!” Stan said, grabbing Topher's shoulder. “What are you doing? Those rocks are sharp. Here, put your water shoes on.”  
  
“It feels stupid to wear shoes in the water,” he said, but he sat down and slid them on. Stan didn't like wearing any kind of gear in the water himself, but the cumbersome stuff was required for what he badly wanted -- to see some beautiful fish and their secret, underwater world.   
  
There was little chance of that in Shark's Cove. A baby was crying in his mother's arms, and every time Stan surfaced to clean his mask he could hear it like an alarm telling him to evacuate. There were fish in the cloudy water, but they all looked startled and grayish. By the time some asshole pulled out a ukulele and started singing 'My Girl' very loudly on the nearby rocks, Stan was ready to go.   
  
“It feels gross,” Livy complained when he found her. “Like I'm swimming in toilet water.”   
  
“It's just cloudy from everyone kicking up sand,” Stan said. “But – we can go. Where's Toph and Daddy?”  
  
“There,” Livy said, and she pointed to where Kyle was helping Topher navigate the rocks, heading back toward the beach. Stan was glad to see that they were making an exit, but before they could reach the shore Kyle slipped and fell.   
  
Kyle was hissing curses by the time Stan had jogged through the water to get to him, probably stepping on some important developing reef material on the way. Livy followed, and she gasped when she saw blood streaking down Kyle's wrist. He'd cut his palm on a rock when he braced himself to land.   
  
“Oh, my God,” Topher said. “Sharks will come.”   
  
“We're getting out,” Stan said, helping Kyle up. “And if sharks eat some of these other people, well. Maybe it was meant to be.”  
  
“Jesus, Stan,” Kyle said. “ _Fuck_ , that stings!”  
  
“It's the salt water,” Livy said. “What if it gets infected?”  
  
“We've got the anti-bacterial stuff,” Stan said, thinking of the hour-long drive across the island that they'd have to make now, sticky and sandy, Kyle bleeding all over the rental car. When they reached the car Stan poured drinking water on Kyle's hand before applying the anti-bacterial stuff, which made him shout in pain. Topher slapped his hands over his ears. Stan took his t-shirt and wrapped it around Kyle's hand to stop the bleeding.   
  
“Oh my God,” Topher said. He kept saying it, and Stan was holding himself back from telling him to be quiet. “We have to go to the hospital.”   
  
“It's not that bad,” Stan said. “Right?” he said, touching Kyle's chin.  
  
“I don't know,” Kyle said, shaking his uninjured hand. “It kills, Stan.”   
  
“I know, dude, but it's just the anti-bacterial stuff. I think. It wasn't a deep cut, you just lost a chunk of skin.”   
  
“Oh, God,” Topher said. “Is a fish going to eat it?”  
  
“I feel faint,” Kyle said, leaning against the car. He'd gone white; he was very squeamish about blood, especially his own. Stan made him drink some water.  
  
They'd planned on stopping at the famous Birthing Stones on the way back to Aiea, but those plans were scrapped without discussion. Kyle was moaning softly in the passenger seat, cradling his injured hand against his chest. The kids were silent, staring out their windows at farmland.  
  
“Well,” Stan said. “That was an adventure, huh?”  
  
“Uh, yeah,” Topher said, and they were all quiet for the rest of the drive.   
  
They stopped at a grocery store close to the rental house for bandages and iodine. Back at the apartment, Kyle screamed loud enough to startle the landlady's yippy dog when the iodine was applied.   
  
“Maybe don't do that!” Topher said, watching from the living room as Stan tended to Kyle's wound in the bathroom.   
  
“It's fine,” Stan said, and he stroked Kyle's hair. “The hard part's over.”   
  
“Fuck!” Kyle said.   
  
“Shh.” Stan hugged him, but Kyle didn't seem to be in the mood for tenderness. He grumbled about having to pee and kicked Stan out of the bathroom.   
  
They rested for the remainder of the afternoon, and Stan made himself a drink at four. He kept reminding Kyle about how good he'd been at surfing, trying to cheer him up.  
  
“You were so much better than me,” he said when they were lying together on the bed, Kyle's laptop open on his stomach. The kids were sitting on the floor playing cards, which was fairly miraculous.   
  
“I should have had someone take pictures,” Kyle said. “No one will believe that.”   
  
“Sure they will. The kids can tell them. You were awesome. I was so jealous.”  
  
“How's your chest?” Kyle asked, reaching over to touch it. Stan shrugged.  
  
“It's okay,” he said. “Until I try to sit up. Or lie down. But sitting up is the worst, I guess.”   
  
“Well, fantastic,” Kyle said. He sighed and looked at his hand. “How am I supposed to get in the water with this? It's not sanitary. I'll end up getting an infection from fish shit and having my hand amputated. That's what I get for trying to do something like go to Hawaii.”  
  
“Stop,” Stan said, and he offered some of his drink. Kyle accepted it, wincing.   
  
“I want a real mai tai,” he said. “When we're in Waikiki tomorrow.”  
  
“Done,” Stan said. Kyle smiled at him tiredly.   
  
“Remember when you'd let me feel your chest?” he said. “When you got that injury?”  
  
“Yeah. You took my blood pressure and everything.”   
  
“I liked that you were the sick one for once,” Kyle said. He pushed the laptop aside and rolled against Stan, clutching his arm. “As long as you weren't _really_ sick. Just, you know. I never got to take care of you.”   
  
“I should have let you carry my books,” Stan said. “Somebody was supposed to, but I couldn't think of anyone who would, except you, and I didn't want to ask you.”   
  
“How come?”  
  
“Because you – you were mine to take care of. Like you said. We both knew it.”   
  
“There were exceptions! The time with the baby cows, for example. I would have carried your books."   
  
“How's your hand?” Stan asked, reaching for it.   
  
“Missing some skin,” Kyle said. “But fine. You don't think a fish ate it, do you? My skin?” He looked queasy at the thought, so Stan lied.  
  
“No,” he said, petting Kyle. “Probably not.”   
  
They went for an early dinner at a conveyor belt sushi place, and the kids were in great moods, completely impressed by the concept. Kyle and Stan were cheerful, too, and they both ate way too much. Everything was good and inexpensive, and Stan was only slightly miffed that the place didn't serve alcohol.   
  
“Hey,” Livy said later that night, when Stan was getting a beer from the fridge. Kyle was outside watching Topher do laps in the pool.   
  
“Hey,” Stan said, wondering if he should put the beer back. “What's up?”   
  
“You know Erica?”   
  
Stan nodded and cracked open the beer. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course I know her, she's your best friend. Why?”  
  
“Um, I was just—” She looked out at the patio, which was dark except for the pool lights. The water was rocking against the sides of the pool, and Topher was relentlessly transversing it. Stan would probably have to let him join the swim team soon. Maybe he could volunteer as a coach, to make sure there was no funny business, but the other parents would hate that. He would be the one under suspicion, kept out of the locker room.   
  
“What, honey?” Stan said when Livy just sat there fretting.   
  
“Where is she from?” Livy asked. “Butters will only say that a stork brought her, but we're not little kids. We know about – babies.”   
  
“What does Cartman say?” Stan asked, glad that he'd decided to have the beer.  
  
“He says 'ask your mother.'” Livy rolled her eyes. “I think she must be adopted, but she looks a lot like Butters, and—” Livy drummed her fingers on the kitchen counter, avoiding Stan's eyes. “You guys would tell me if she was my sister, right?” she said in a rush.   
  
“Your – what?” Stan said, lost. He put the beer down. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“Sometimes, when Erica laughs really hard, milk comes out her nose,” Livy said, her cheeks getting progressively redder. “Even if she hasn't been drinking any. Like Daddy.”   
  
“Oh, honey,” Stan said, and he walked around the counter to give her a one-armed hug. “That's – that's a long story. Erica's dad donated one of his kidneys to Kyle when we were kids. That's Cartman's, uh, disorder, you know – Daddy just sort of inherited it.”   
  
“Yeah, right,” Livy said, moving away from him. “Erica's dad wouldn't give Daddy anything. Not even a paperclip.”  
  
“Well, I sort of—” Stan glanced outside, wishing Kyle was fielding this, but it wasn't the sort of question Livy asked him. “I sort of tricked him into it. Like I said, it's a long story. And how could – what did you think, Kyle and Butters had a baby together somehow? I know Butters looks – dresses, um, like a woman, but as far as I understand he still – you know. He's not a woman. He couldn't have a baby.”  
  
“So where did Erica come from?” Livy asked, still looking suspicious.   
  
“Nobody really knows,” Stan said. “Eric and Butters moved away from town for a while, and when they came back they had Erica. Nobody wanted to pry.”  
  
“Daddy did, I bet.”  
  
“Well, yes, he had some theories about – criminal activity, but I don't think it was anything like that. And does it really matter? She's their daughter, so. Wherever she came from—”  
  
“It's just all so complicated,” Livy said, angrily. “Even Toph, and at least he came from both of you.”  
  
"You know what's not complicated, though?" Stan said, reaching for her again. She let him hug her this time. "How much we love you guys. It wouldn't matter if we'd found you in a wicker basket on the front porch. We love you so much." He wasn't sure this was the right approach to her anxiety. She was still frowning, stiff under his arm.  
  
"It matters to me," she said.   
  
"Why, honey?" he asked.  
  
"I don't know," she said, mumbling, and she slipped out from under his arm. He watched her walk outside, at a loss, and no longer in the mood for a beer. Livy sat down beside Kyle and put her legs in the pool. Stan took it personally when she leaned into the hug Kyle gave her. She was Kyle's daughter, biologically, not his. It had never bothered him, but suddenly it seemed horribly unfair.   
  
"When's the last time milk came out your nose?" Stan asked Kyle when they were brushing their teeth together. Topher was in the bath, singing to himself, and Livy was using Kyle's laptop, headphones plugged in.   
  
"I don't know," Kyle said. "A few years ago. It makes me ill every time. To think I have something of Cartman's inside me." He touched Stan's arm. "Not that I don't appreciate, you know, being alive. And the whole ruse." He gave Stan a kiss on the end of his nose and rubbed his shoulder. "What's wrong?" he asked.  
  
"I still wish it had been mine," Stan said.   
  
"What, your kidney?"  
  
"Yeah. You ended up with that defective one. And like you say, it's _Cartman's_."   
  
"Well," Kyle said. "Yours didn't match my blood type."  
  
"I hate that someone like that shares a blood type with you," Stan said. "And that I don't."   
  
"Stan." Kyle glanced in the direction of the bath tub, which was around the corner. Topher was still singing. "What's the matter?"  
  
"Livy," Stan said, whispering. "I'll tell you later."   
  
"You'll tell me now!" Kyle turned to see Livy still absorbed in his computer, the headphones in her ears. He turned on the sink full blast for additional cover. "What happened?"  
  
"She asked if Erica was her sister. Because that milk thing happens to her, too. I didn't know. I guess she inherited it from Cartman."  
  
"So she is his daughter," Kyle said, frowning. "But wait, what? Why would Liv think Erica was her sister? Because that milk thing happens to me?"   
  
"Yeah. And she's just having some angst, generally. About, you know. Shelly's genetic contribution, as opposed to mine."   
  
"Oh, she'll get over it," Kyle said. "Ike went through this, too, sort of."   
  
"Are you talking about Uncle Ike?" Topher shouted, his little voice echoing from the bathing chamber.   
  
"Quit eavesdropping!" Kyle said, and he turned off the faucet. "Well, you'd scared me for a minute there," he said, squeezing Stan's arm. "But that's normal."  
  
"It makes me sad," Stan said. "That she feels that way."   
  
"A lot of things they feel are going to make you sad," Kyle said. "That's the way it works."  
  
Stan wasn't sure he was prepared for that. He kissed Livy's forehead before bed, tucking her in like he had when she was a kid. She used to like it when the blankets were so tight across her shoulders that she couldn't move at first. She called it a serious tuck-in and always begged him to do it.   
  
"What's tomorrow?" Topher asked when he jumped in beside her.  
  
"Goat Island," Kyle said, from the pull-out couch.   
  
"Goats," Topher said. "Cool!"  
  
"There are no goats on Goat Island," Kyle said. "Sorry."   
  
"Of course not," Stan said, and Livy smiled at him.


	3. Chapter 3

Stan slept fitfully that night, and Kyle grunted in complaint as Stan arranged and rearranged himself around him. He had bad dreams about Cartman, nose milk and Kyle's health. By dawn he was clutching at Kyle relentlessly, ignoring Kyle's sighs of protest.  
  
"You kept me up all night!" Kyle said when they were in the kitchen, getting breakfast ready. The kids were half-awake, staring at cartoons on TV.   
  
"Sorry," Stan said. "Couldn't sleep."   
  
"Are you having a mid-life crisis?" Kyle asked, his voice low and serious. Stan laughed.   
  
"I don't know," he said. "I sold my company and we're in Hawaii. Maybe."  
  
"Don't flake out on me," Kyle said.   
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"Never mind, I'm grumpy. Olive! Topher! Get in here and eat, we need to leave soon."   
  
"Why are you calling me that?" Livy asked, sulking into the kitchen with her early-morning expression of loathing. It reminded Stan of Shelly's facial expressions from the ages of eleven to eighteen, and suddenly this made him nervous.   
  
"It's your name, that's why," Topher said when Kyle didn't dignify Livy's question with an answer. Olive had been Kyle's choice. It did fit her eye color perfectly.  
  
The drive to Goat Island was the same as the drive to the North Shore for the first half hour or so, but then they veered off into deeper farmland, passing giant white windmills that the kids took pictures of from the car. Up close they were almost scary, like silent alien beings who were borrowing energy from the earth. Goat Island was off the shore of a quiet, uncrowded park, and for once they didn't have to fight for a parking spot. Stan was in a good mood as soon as he got out of the car. There was something peaceful about the place that was in sharp contrast to the manic roadside energy of Shark's Cove.  
  
"What's that?" Topher asked, pointing to an RV that had been converted to a campsite that they passed on their way to the beach.  
  
"Homeless people," Kyle said.   
  
"Wanderers, more like," Stan said.   
  
"I don't think that RV has wandered anywhere for a while," Kyle said. "It looks decrepit."   
  
"Shh," Stan said. They passed a few more people who seemed to live in the park, boiling water for laundry. Stan liked the idea that this was the kind of place where a few quiet people could live in a not entirely legal fashion. The park was big enough that it didn't feel invasively occupied.   
  
The beach was virtually deserted when they arrived, just a few kids playing in the water down the coast, their mothers watching from the shore. The waves were much more intense than they had been at Lanikai, and Goat Island was farther off shore than Stan had expected, a rocky outcropping in the distance.   
  
"Huh," Kyle said, seeming to notice this, too. "They said it was easy to walk to it. I guess the water is shallow."   
  
"Did you look at a tide chart or anything?" Stan asked.   
  
"No," Kyle said. "But they look local." He gestured to three people who were emerging from the wooded area, carrying an inner tube onto the beach. It was an older man, a woman and a little kid. "Let's just see what they do," Kyle said as he set up their towels in a shady area near the tree line.  
  
The man and the boy stood at the edge of the water for ten minutes before wading in, the little boy riding in the inner tube while the man pulled it behind him with an attached rope. Stan didn't feel ready to bring the kids into those waves, and he wished they'd brought something to float them on at least. Kyle and Topher were both eager to get to the island, and Livy seemed more apprehensive.  
  
"You could ride on my back," Stan said.   
  
"No," she said, sliding on her water shoes. "I'm fine."  
  
At first, wading through the waves was kind of fun, but it quickly became exhausting. The waves were breaking together in a line that was perpendicular to the shore, and water was shallow but the chaos of the waves was disorienting. Stan kept hold of Livy's hand and Kyle carried Topher, who was wearing a little life vest they'd brought from the house. He hated the life vest, and ripped it off when they finally reached the narrow beach on Goat Island.   
  
"I could have swam," he said, but he was as breathless as the rest of them just from being beaten by the waves. Stan felt terrible about all the coral he'd stepped on while they made their way across, but he'd needed traction to keep from being swept away.   
  
"You okay?" he asked Livy.  
  
"Uh-huh," she said, trying to fix her hair, which had come loose from its tie in dripping chunks. Kyle stepped in to help her.  
  
"This is a sea bird sanctuary," he said. "I thought you'd like that," he said to Stan.   
  
"I do like it!" Stan said, looking around. The other family was heading off to the right, and otherwise they had the island to themselves. "Look," Stan said, pointing to some retreating shearwaters. They were shy birds who darted about on skinny legs, and both of the kids seemed to find their scampering amusing.   
  
They walked along the rim of the island, over craggy rocks and around to the back, where fifteen foot swells smashed against the far side of the island. All of them went quiet, watching this, and Stan put his hands on Topher's shoulders, nervous to have him near something so powerful and untamed.   
  
"Damn," Kyle said. "I wish we could have brought the camera. We should have gotten a waterproof one."   
  
"I don't think you could capture that, anyway," Stan said. "You'd need the sound. And the spray. Can you feel it?" he asked, giving Topher a shake.   
  
"Yeah," Topher said, staring, wide-eyed. "What if you were in there?"  
  
"In the water?" Stan said.   
  
"That's what," Livy said, pointing to a crab that had been thrown onto the rocks. The birds had hollowed out his insides cleanly.   
  
"Well, obviously we're not getting in the water here," Kyle said. "But that lagoon where we came in was really calm. We should have brought the snorkeling equipment!"  
  
"Dude, chill," Stan said. "Let's just walk around and take it in some more."  
  
By the time they made it back around to the other side of the island more people had arrived, including a teenage couple who were climbing on the rocks, venturing into the steeper and more jagged areas. The girl, punkish with bleached hair, posed while her boyfriend took pictures.  
  
"What if she falls!" Topher said.   
  
"She won't," Stan said, though she was being reckless.  
  
"She's an idiot," Kyle said. "Look, oh, shit. That man and the kid with the inner tube are heading back. How long have we been here?"  
  
Stan wasn't sure. He'd enjoyed just walking quietly around the island with his family, watching the kids pick up random shells or weird rocks on the beach, shearwaters fleeing into the protected area in the middle of the island. The prospect of another trip across the water was daunting, but the afternoon sun was brutal overhead, and Kyle and Livy would need to reapply sunscreen.   
  
"What if we built a house here?" Topher asked as they waded back into the lagoon, heading toward the waves.   
  
"Then where would the birds build their nests?" Stan asked.   
  
"In the gutters?"  
  
"I don't think they'd like that."   
  
Stan carried Topher this time, and Livy stayed close to Kyle. The waves seemed to be intensifying, and the man and boy with the inner tube reached the shore far before they did, making Stan nervous. Others who had been to the island were already on the shore, too. Stan looked behind him and saw that they were the only ones currently in the water.  
  
"Honey?" he said to Kyle, beginning to worry.   
  
"It's fine!" Kyle shouted over the waves, which were crashing over Stan's head every few seconds, making him feel like he was getting his head pummeled by a boxer. "We're almost there!"  
  
They finished their trek through the shallow, turbulent water at a near run, and were able to make it to the beach without being swept away by the changing tides. Stan was panting, fatigued, and his chest was aching terribly, but he felt a kind of near-death survivor's euphoria settle over him as they headed toward their towels. He didn't think they had actually been near death, but they'd been in the grip of something unmerciful and had come out the other side together, all four of them. He stretched out in the sun and closed his eyes while Kyle dried the kids and put sunscreen on them.   
  
"Well," Kyle said when Livy and Topher were playing near the shore, running from the crashing waves. "I'm starving. How much longer do you want stay?"  
  
"Another hour?" Stan said, though he was hungry, too. "I love it here."  
  
"It is nice," Kyle said. He was only partly sun-dappled, leaves rustling overhead on the tree that shaded him. "So wonderful that there's hardly anyone on the beach."  
  
"I know," Stan said. "It's perfect."  
  
"What does that mean about us?" Kyle asked, peeking at him. Stan was up on his elbows, keeping an eye on the kids. "That we just want to get away from people? The kids are like that, too, I think. We're raising two little misanthropes."  
  
"We're not misanthropes. We just appreciate a quiet beach."  
  
"I guess you're right," Kyle said. He rolled onto his side, toward Stan, and he smiled when Stan played with his salt-crusted curls.   
  
"I'm gonna take a picture of you," Stan said, groping for the camera.   
  
"Don't," Kyle said, but he sucked in his stomach and adjusted himself on the towel, his eyes closed. Stan took two pictures and checked on the kids. They were writing things in the sand with some driftwood. When he was certain they weren't looking he leaned down to kiss Kyle's cheek, then his ear, his jaw. Kyle laughed and cringed.  
  
"We're so lucky, you know?" Stan said, still hovering over Kyle, wanting to press his face to Kyle's neck.   
  
"I know," Kyle said. He peeked at Stan. "I'm glad you can appreciate that in the midst of your mid-life crisis."  
  
"It's not a mid-life crisis," Stan said. "It's just change. You know how I feel about change."  
  
"Oh, yes," Kyle said. "And thank God for that. It's why you're still with me."  
  
"No. It's more like you're the reason I'm afraid of change. Because this one thing that's stayed the same has been the best thing in my life."   
  
"Stanley," Kyle said, rolling onto his back. He was smiling. "Stop trying to seduce me. It's not the time."  
  
"I'm not--!"   
  
"You are so." Kyle sat up with a groan and brushed sand off of himself. "I think it's only like eleven, but I can't wait, dude, I'm so hungry."  
  
"We brought granola bars."  
  
"Fuck granola bars. I need a real meal. Guys!" he called, waving to the kids when they looked up from whatever they were drawing in the sand. "Hungry?"  
  
They shrugged noncommittally, but Kyle started packing up the stuff anyway. Stan took more pictures while he did, his own stomach rumbling. He knew the pictures wouldn't work in terms of truly capturing the memory. There was something about the air, sweet and uncomplicated, and he felt as if they'd been truly embraced by this place despite the trampling of the coral on the way to Goat Island. Stan had said 'shit' and 'sorry' every time his foot landed on some.  
  
There was an outdoor shower near the public restrooms in the park, and they all washed the sand off as best they could. Stan took more pictures. Near the shower there was a tree that was truly majestic, and the way the sun came through its light green leaves, making them glow with translucence from below, was sort of breathtaking.   
  
"C'mere," Stan said to Livy, drawing her toward him. "Look up."   
  
She did, and smiled. He wanted to explain to her then that she was a part of him, not of Shelly, and this proved it, because Shelly had never given half a shit about trees, but he didn't want to spoil the moment or bring her thoughts back to the previous night's conversation.   
  
"I wish we lived someplace warm," she said, and that broke Stan's heart in a completely different way. She was getting good at doing that without meaning to, like Kyle.   
  
"I know," he said. "But wouldn't you miss Erica, and grandma, and uncle Ike?"  
  
"Yeah," she said. "I don't mean I want to move. I just like this better than snow."  
  
"Oh, yeah. Me too."   
  
They drove back in the direction they'd come from until they passed a bakery that was apparently famous. Kyle requested a turn around, and Stan obeyed gladly, because the bakery was packed but looked quaint, a real farm fresh lunch place. There were hordes of zebra doves zig-zagging between the patrons' feet while they ate at outdoor tables, and at one point five baby chicks wandered by near the road, cheeping. Stan had a greasy hot dog pastry thing that was amazing. Kyle had a grilled chicken sandwich and the kids got cheeseburgers, then giant donuts for dessert. Stan took a picture of Topher eating one, sugar all over his face. He went back in to buy some bread pudding, and though it was delicious he let Kyle eat most of it.   
  
"That was the best meal ever," Stan said while they were cleaning up, because it was important to Kyle that his restaurant choices were validated.  
  
"Just wait until later," Kyle said. "We're going to the _original_ Roy's. At least, I think it's the original."   
  
"Is this the Waikiki night?" Livy asked.   
  
"Yes, it is," Kyle said. "We'll do a little shopping, and then there's this famous outdoor bar where they have traditional music, and then dinner."   
  
"What's traditional music?" Topher asked, making a face.  
  
"Ukuleles and such," Kyle said. "You'll love it. Don't give me that look."  
  
The drive back to Aiea was much less tense without Kyle bleeding in the passenger seat, and Stan helped him clean and re-bandage his hand after they'd showered. The kids stretched out in bed to watch TV and were asleep by the time Kyle's wound had been redressed. Stan poured two glasses of wine from the box in the fridge and added an ice cube to Kyle's.   
  
"Totally successful day," Stan said, toasting him.  
  
"Yeah," Kyle said. "It really was. And Waikiki will be neat."   
  
Stan wasn't expecting to like it much, but he nodded. They headed out to the patio together, and Kyle collected the novel he was reading, some gay love story that apparently was very disappointing, which probably meant there was no graphic sex. He only allowed himself to read such books on vacation, and he never liked them. Stan sat with his legs in the pool while Kyle stretched out on a lounge chair that he'd dragged into the shade. If the kids weren't with them, Stan would take off all his clothes and swim lazy laps across the pool, pausing to cast suggestive looks at Kyle until he joined him. It had been too long since he'd felt Kyle's nakedness against his underwater, and they'd never skinny dipped together in slippery chlorinated cleanness. They'd done it once in Stark's Pond, when they were home from college between their junior and senior year. It was nighttime but still halfway light outside, one of the longest days of the year. Kyle's skin had felt brand new when Stan put his hands on him under the dark water, and Stan had fucked him in the woods afterward, on top of a pile of their crumpled clothes, something that seemed insane to him now. He'd even planned it that way, a little bottle of lube in the pocket of his jeans.   
  
"What's the craziest thing we did as kids?" Stan asked, turning to Kyle. "I mean, after we were dating."  
  
"Got married," Kyle said, and he laughed at Stan's expression, then made a sympathetic sound. He put his book down and got up to join Stan by the pool. "I mean, objectively," he said, rubbing Stan's back and resting his chin on his shoulder. "Being that we were barely twenty-two. But obviously it was the right thing for us. Don't get all gloomy, dude, please." He kissed Stan's neck, and Stan melted into it, pushing his nose into Kyle's hair. "Clearly you were thinking of something else?" Kyle said.  
  
"Stark's Pond," Stan said. "And forest sex."   
  
"Ah, God," Kyle said. "We must have been out of our minds."   
  
"It was so good, though. You were so, like, soft. This pale little thing on the forest floor. I felt like I was protecting you from something."  
  
"See!" Kyle said, smacking Stan's arm. "There's nothing like that in this goddamn book I'm reading. That's amazing, what you just said. Amazingly arousing, anyway, to me. The idea that you were protecting me by fucking my–" He glanced at the sliding glass doors. The kids were still sleeping. "Ass," Kyle said, whispering. "That's just. It works, somehow. Between my legs, it works. You should write gay novels."   
  
"Yeah," Stan said. "But I'm not that good about where to put commas and stuff."  
  
"Oh, whatever, I could do that part for you. Yes, oh my gosh. This needs to happen. And I could imagine that all of the love stuff you wrote was really about me."  
  
"Of course it would be about you," Stan said. They kissed until Kyle knocked his wine glass over on the patio, breaking it.   
  
"Fuck," he said, and he looked up at the first floor of the house, where the landlady lived. "Do you think she heard that?"  
  
"I don't know," Stan said. "Let's clean it up, quick." It wasn't the first time he'd had a semi-boner while picking up glass that Kyle had broken.  
  
They roused the kids at four o'clock and headed toward the city, hoping to beat the traffic. Everyone had dressed nicely for the evening, with the exception of Topher, who wore his Colo"rad"o t-shirt and some green shorts. Stan put on a polo shirt, following Kyle's lead, and a decent pair of khakis. Kyle was wearing his fancy jeans, a pair he'd paid a hundred dollars for that made his ass look particularly in need of grabbing. Livy wore her flower print dress and the platform heels.  
  
"So much for beating the traffic," Stan said when they were in gridlock on the way into the city. Topher was getting antsy, banging his knee against the car door and sighing dramatically.   
  
"Well, this messes up the whole schedule," Kyle said. "Shit. Should I call the restaurant and see if I can move our reservation back to eight? Or eight thirty?"  
  
"If that will help you relax, sure," Stan said. "I don't want to feel like we're in a hurry."   
  
"I _am_ in a hurry," Topher said. "How much longer until we're there?"   
  
"I'm not sure, Toph," Stan said. "Do you have to pee or something?"  
  
"No," he said. "I just hate sitting."  
  
"I have to pee," Livy said.   
  
"Me too," Kyle said.  
  
"Actually, so do I," Topher said, but when Stan turned to look at him he grinned impishly, which always meant he was lying.   
  
They didn't reach the city for another half hour, and there was a family-wide shouting match as they tried to figure out where to park. Finally Stan let them out near a department store so they could all run in and pee, because apparently Topher actually needed to by then. It took Stan another ten minutes to find a pay garage, then he couldn't figure out how to get back to the department store on foot, and when he did he pulled out his phone and realized it was dead. Kyle had even asked him, _Is your phone charged?_ before he climbed out of the car. Stan had said yes, too tense about the parking situation to really hear the question or think about the answer.   
  
"Fuck," he said, pacing around in front of the department store. Surely they had all used the restroom and flitted off to some other shop, thinking Stan would call them to learn their new location. Waikiki was clean and corporate in a way that was making him nervous. It looked like a movie set, with big Prada and Gucci type establishments on every corner, carefully landscaped palm trees surrounded by modest flowers that looked like their root balls had never been broken. People were dressed to be seen. Stan wanted to start calling out Kyle's name, but that would be ridiculous. He waited, perking up every time the doors of the department store opened, and he hated everyone who wasn't them.  
  
Eventually he decided he'd waited long enough, and that wherever Kyle and the kids were, they were probably worried about him. He went into the department store, and it took forever to actually find somebody who worked there and ask if he could use the store phone to make an emergency call. He was asked if it was a local call, and he started to say yes, should have, but no, it wasn't. Kyle's cell phone had a South Park area code. The sales associate, a lady who'd looked pissed off to be bothered even before she'd heard what he needed, told him that long distance calls were not allowed.  
  
Stan wandered back out onto the street, feeling as if he should go back in and argue with the woman on behalf of his kids or something, too afraid to try. He walked around, trying to locate places where Kyle and the kids might be, but everything was designer clothing crap, and nobody actually seemed to be in the stores, just walking around outside in cruise wear or tight little shorts, depending on their age. Stan was planning on finding an ATM, getting cash and offering someone a hundred dollars for the use of their cell phone when he finally saw Kyle's hair in the distance. He was standing at the front of the department store with the kids, frowning.   
  
"Hey!" Stan said, running to them. Kyle looked relieved when he saw him, then angry again. The kids jumped up from the stone step they'd been sitting on like they'd just been released from a boring class.   
  
"What the hell are you doing?" Kyle asked. "I knew your cell phone wasn't charged, Stan, damn you--" He stopped talking when Stan hugged him hard, overwhelmed with disproportionate relief, like they'd all just been pulled out of the ocean by Coast Guard helicopters. He reached around Kyle to pull Livy and Topher into the hug, too.  
  
"Dad?" Livy said.   
  
"I'm sorry," Stan said. He leaned back to look at Kyle, who seemed concerned. "I didn't know my phone was dead. Sorry. Shit, that was -- stressful."   
  
"It was like fifteen minutes," Kyle said. "Calm down. Stan -- ah. Okay. C'mon." He took Stan's hand, still shooting him wary looks as they walked away from the department store, toward the main drag.  
  
"Dad, you were lost!" Topher said, grabbing for Stan's other hand.   
  
"I know," Stan said. "It was scary."   
  
"Oh, for God's sake," Kyle said. "I knew that was a bad idea. Well, at least it didn't take us long to find you." He squeezed Stan's hand. To Stan it had been a long time, and his heart was still racing.  
  
"Do pay phones exist anymore?" he asked. "I couldn't find one."   
  
"I think they're still around," Kyle said. "I've heard most of them are broken, though. I guess there's not much pressure to keep them operational or whatever."   
  
Stan felt like he'd navigated through another channel of relentless waves, alone this time. He was in a good mood as they wandered through shops, light in his steps while Kyle and the kids they perused the sort of merchandise that normally made Stan get cynical and impatient. Suddenly it all seemed like harmless fun, and he consented to everything they wanted to buy.   
  
"I feel stupid in this shirt," Kyle said, looking at himself in a full length mirror while Livy tried on Hawaiian-print dresses and Topher entertained himself with some game on Kyle's phone.   
  
"What do you mean?" Stan asked. "Why?"  
  
"I don't know," Kyle said. "I'm too old and fat to be a gay man wearing a polo shirt. Jesus, look at me."  
  
"You look great," Stan said. "And you're not fat. And you've still got all your hair. Not everyone our age is so lucky."  
  
"Would you leave me if I lost my hair?" Kyle asked, touching it.   
  
"No," Stan said. "And you're not going to lose it. You don't have the baldness genes."  
  
"It will go gray, though," Kyle said. "I'll have to start coloring it. God, how pathetic."  
  
"I don't think they make your color," Stan said, ruffling Kyle's curls. "I've never seen anyone else with this exact same shade."   
  
"You're just romantic, it's not that unique," Kyle said, smiling at him in the mirror. Livy emerged from the dressing room and showed them a white and red dress that looked too grown-up.   
  
"I don't know about that one," Stan said. It was short and strapless, and it emphasized the fact that she already had a rather womanly figure. Kyle had once hypothesized, to Stan's horror, that Livy would inherit his mother's chest. Kyle assured him that Sheila's bust line had been very 'proportional' before she had children, which was hardly a comfort.   
  
"I like it," Kyle said. "You're a redhead who can pull off the color red. I envy you."  
  
"But she couldn't really wear that at home," Stan said.  
  
"Why not?" Kyle asked. "Throw a cardigan over it and it's appropriate for any occasion."  
  
"Yeah," Livy said, smoothing the front down. "Exactly."   
  
"I'm so bored!" Topher said, shouting. "Why are we doing this on _vacation_? You can shop for clothes at home!"  
  
"Shh!" Kyle said. "You're in public, act like it!" He looked at Stan. "Should we go get mai tais now? I think it's five or so."   
  
"It's six," Stan said. They'd been shopping for a while, and despite his high spirits, he understood where Topher was coming from. It was a relief to check out and leave the shopping district behind. They were able to find the bar without too much confusion and bickering about which direction to head, and it had the movie set quality that a lot of Waikiki did, but with a view of the ocean it was charming. The outdoor seating area was spread out and uncrowded, and there was a little band playing under a giant kiawe tree that provided a kind of natural stage. They got a table near a manicured lawn to the right of the musicians, and the kids immediately began devouring the complimentary potato chips. Stan felt buzzed even before they'd ordered their drinks, holding Kyle's hand in his lap. There was a cruise ship docked off in the distance, and speed boats passed by, far enough away to seem atmospheric rather than noisy.   
  
"This is really nice!" Kyle said. He sounded surprised. Stan took pictures of the band, and he stuck the flower from his mai tai in Livy's hair when it arrived. She'd gotten a virgin version of the drink, and Topher was satisfied with Coke.  
  
"Are you guys going to dance?" Topher asked, teasing them for sitting close and holding hands. The music was traditional indeed, slow and dreamy, and there was a woman who was older than Stan and Kyle doing some mellow hula dancing along to the beat, smiling out at the crowd. She was wearing a long, white dress and an elaborate lei, and Stan admired her. He wanted to be like that when he was fifty, sixty, or however old she was -- hard to tell. He wanted to do something with his life that looked ridiculous but sweet from afar.  
  
"I don't know," Stan said, and he brought Kyle's hand up to his lips, kissing his knuckles. "Should we dance?"  
  
"Don't be ridiculous," Kyle said. "No one is dancing. You'd have to feed me about five more of these to get me on my feet." He sucked down some mai tai and made an approving noise. "Really good, wow."  
  
"Alright, five more," Stan said, and he winked at Topher, who groaned.   
  
"Well, I'm not dancing," Topher said, like someone had asked him to. He'd never had much trouble with having two dads, but he didn't like it when they did things that he deemed 'girly,' as if that reflected badly on him. He liked hearing about Stan's high school football career and Kyle's private school students cowering in fear of his wrath, and didn't like it when they were especially affectionate with each other, though he was rather cuddly with both of them himself.  
  
Kyle didn't have five mai tais, but he did manage to down three in the hour that they sat there listening to Hawaiian music, and Stan wanted to match him, but he restricted himself to two so that he'd be able to drive after dinner. Kyle didn't seem as drunk as Stan feared he might be, and they made it to their seven o'clock reservation on time. Roy's was right across the street from the hotel that housed the outdoor bar, and Stan doubted it was the original. It looked brand new, tiki torches burning outside as the sun went down.   
  
"I will have a pineapple martini," Kyle said when they placed their drink orders, and Livy laughed at the expression on Stan's face. Kyle snapped the drink menu shut and raised his eyebrows. "They're highly recommended on Trip Advisor," he said.  
  
"I'll bet," Stan said. He ordered a beer. Livy asked for a virgin strawberry daiquiri and Kyle didn't bat an eyelash at Topher ordering his fourth Coke of the evening. It seemed appropriate to overindulge after a day that felt close to perfect, the harrowing waves and moment of panicked separation included, and Stan asked for two appetizers, resolved to splurge: mozzarella sticks for the kids and calamari for him and Kyle.   
  
"Yes, yes, I'm in the mood for something fried," Kyle said, rubbing his hands together as the waiter departed.   
  
"They come with a mayonnaise-based dipping sauce," Stan said, waggling his eyebrows, and Kyle giggled like a kid. Stan couldn't even remember the last time he'd seen Kyle tipsy.  
  
Dinner was good, and Stan was stuffed by the end, sobered by the sheer amount of food he'd consumed. Kyle had a second martini and was a little loud, but the kids seemed to be enjoying his take on their childhood stories about Cartman. He was being dramatic, insisting that Cartman had been on the verge of world domination at times, only to be brought to justice by Kyle, with some help from Stan. The kids asked endless questions and laughed at most of Kyle's answers. They loved that their parents had grown up together. To them it seemed natural and appropriate, and they liked the thought of little Stan and Kyle playing with trucks and racing bikes with Cartman and Kenny. They tended to find Kenny especially glamorous, because he was a bachelor, a smoker, and he'd once had a motorcycle. It was part of the reason Kyle didn't like having him over very often, now that the kids were older and 'more impressionable.' He hated to expose them to Cartman even more, but he relied on Butters as a babysitter when their parents weren't available.  
  
"Tell us about Butters when he was little," Topher said.   
  
"He didn't dress like a girl back then," Livy said. "Right?"  
  
"Oh, God, no," Kyle said. "His parents would have disowned him if he tried. No, Butters, gosh. Butters. Well, he was our little slave. If you needed a favor, just ask Butters. No matter what. Some of the stuff we put that kid through--"  
  
"Let's not," Stan said, lifting his hand from the table. This was the time of night that, if not for the kids, he would usher Kyle home gently and then fuck the stuffing out of him while he screamed drunkenly about the miracle of Stan's dick and the way it felt in his ass. Without that end cap to look forward to, tipsy, talky Kyle could get a little trying.   
  
"No, no, I'm just saying," Kyle said. "Butters is a saint. Jesus, you'd have to be. Look who he's married to! You know, that kind of broke my heart, but they must have something secret and special if Cartman was willing to go out in public about it and so forth. Do they ever act sweet with each other when you're over there?" he asked Livy. She shrugged.   
  
"Eric kisses Butters on the cheek sometimes," she said. "Usually when he's cooking something."  
  
"I'm glad you don't dress like that, Daddy," Topher said to Kyle. He looked worried, like he was afraid Kyle might change his mind someday and breeze downstairs in a sun dress.   
  
"Why do you assume I would be the one in the dress?" Kyle asked.   
  
"He's just joking," Stan said, rubbing Topher's back. "Right?"  
  
"No, I'm serious," Topher said. "I'm really glad."  
  
"Honey, I would never do that to you," Kyle asked. "Neither would Stan. Though you seem less concerned about that."   
  
"Well, let's get the check," Stan said, craning his head, looking for the waiter.   
  
"It's just 'cause you're shorter," Livy said to Kyle, and she was blushing as if she at least partly understood why he took exception to being considered the one more likely to put on heels.   
  
"I hate women's clothing," Kyle said. "In terms of, you know. And frankly, when we were kids, Cartman wore more dresses than Butters."  
  
"What!" Topher said.   
  
"It's true," Stan said. "Does he ever wear a skirt while you're over there?" he asked Livy with mock seriousness, and she laughed.   
  
"That guy is too big to fit into a dress," Topher said, boggling.   
  
"He always was," Kyle said, and Stan was glad to see him reach for his glass of water. "But that didn't stop him trying."  
  
It was after ten o'clock by the time they were back on the highway, headed to the rental house, and the kids fell asleep in the backseat. Kyle left the radio off and put his window down, closing his eyes against the breeze.  
  
"You were so worried," he said. "When we found you."   
  
"Just -- it was a really disturbing feeling," Stan said. "Thinking I had a way to get to you guys and then realizing that I didn't."   
  
"Poor thing," Kyle said. He reached over to touch Stan's thigh, still looking out the window. "I was so annoyed when I called your phone and it went straight to voice mail. So annoyed! I was going to be bitchy to you for the rest of the night. But then you showed up looking like you might cry."  
  
"I wasn't going to cry," Stan said. "It was just -- when you're in a strange place--"  
  
"No, I know, I know. It was touching. Are you going to write a novel about me? We were talking about that earlier."  
  
"Sure," Stan said. "Which part would you like me to focus on?"  
  
"Ah, I don't know, teenager-hood, I guess. Those first few years, when we didn't even talk about anything."  
  
"Shh."  
  
"I know, I know, I'm not -- but you'd have to change the names. I mean, you'd have to change some details, too, so that Cartman wouldn't know it was me."  
  
"Who cares if he did? He knows I love you."  
  
Kyle turned to give him a drunk, half-asleep smile, and Stan laughed.  
  
"What?" he said.  
  
"Nothing," Kyle said. "I'm just glad we live in a world where Eric Cartman knows you love me. That seems important. Like, imagine when we were kids, if Cartman had known."  
  
"Dude, he knew," Stan said, laughing. "He was calling us the f-word when we were eight."  
  
"Right, but he called everybody that."  
  
"It didn't mean the same thing," Stan said. "When he said it to us he was calling us boyfriends. And we were, okay? We basically were from the start. We just hadn't figured it out yet."   
  
"Ha. It took me longer to figure it out than you, if you'll recall."  
  
"What, you mean in college?"  
  
"Yes." Kyle grinned at him. "The first time you proposed!"   
  
"You were so upset," Stan said, and he covered Kyle's hand with his. "I couldn't believe -- I thought you knew how I felt."   
  
"You're harder to read than you think."  
  
"I am?" Stan didn't like the idea. "You can tell I'm happy, though, right? Today, I was so happy."   
  
"Me too," Kyle said, and he threaded his fingers through Stan's.  
  
The next day was similarly idyllic, despite Kyle's hangover. They got up at the crack of dawn to be among the first people who were allowed into the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, and the color of the water alone was breathtaking as they made their way down a steep road to the beach, Stan toting most of the snorkeling equipment. They put their gear on and hurried into the water, and it was odd to spend so much time together without really talking, but they were all content to float and gawk. Stan had trouble with this at first, wanting to flail and call the others over to every fish he saw. Some were no less than alien creatures, and the water was permeated with the quiet, Rice Krispies-in-milk sound of them munching on the reef. Stan was so transfixed that he kept going out deeper, until he could feel waves cutting overhead. When he surfaced and turned back he saw he'd passed the buoy. Kyle was waving to him from the shallower water. Stan was mostly alone in the section of the bay he'd drifted into, though there were some scuba divers even farther out. He felt drawn to continue, afraid to miss something, but he didn't want to scare the kids, so he swam back toward the shallower water.   
  
"For God's sake!" Kyle said. "I thought you were going out to sea!"   
  
"Did you see turtles?" Topher asked, treading water. Livy was still snorkeling nearby, wearing her water shoes because she refused to subject herself to the humiliation of flippers.   
  
"No turtles," Stan said. "It's amazing, though, the reef turns into these -- these kind of _skyscrapers_ , and they're more spaced out than the stuff over here, and you can still see the bottom, the sand, and the way the sun cuts through the water--"  
  
"Well, it's too deep," Kyle said. "Right? I mean. I don't want you going that far."   
  
"I didn't mean to," Stan said, giving him a kiss on his cheek.   
  
"Oh, God," Topher said, putting his mask back on. "I'm going back to that place where I saw the eel. Dad! Come with me."   
  
They couldn't find the eel again, and the park was beginning to get crowded as the morning wore on. Perhaps more importantly, they were all exhausted, their early morning adventures beginning to take a toll. Stan sat on a picnic table bench in the grassy area beside the beach, dripping, trying to make himself get up and get back in the water. The kids were sitting at the water's edge while Kyle used the goop the snorkel rental place had given them to clean their masks. It was ecologically safe, they said. Stan trusted this information. The snorkel shop people had seemed like authentic hippies.   
  
"Are you tapped out?" Kyle asked when he came to sit beside Stan.  
  
"I'm trying not to be," Stan said. "It's so fucking -- I can't believe that stuff is real, Kyle. Those fish -- it's not even like a movie, it's like another world."   
  
"Yeah," Kyle said, and he put his head on Stan's shoulder. "I'm really glad you got to do this. I mean, it's so pretty, it's great, but the whole time I'm just giddy like, thinking of you seeing this, too. And how much you'll love it. You know?"  
  
"I know," Stan said, pressing his cheek to Kyle's head. He thought they should probably be more cautious, since the group picnicking on the grass nearby was a conservative-looking pack of chubby seniors, but he was too tired to really care about what they thought. "You gonna be up for our hike tomorrow?" Stan asked, elbowing Kyle. They'd planned to do it early, before they left this part of the island for the Disney hotel.   
  
"I can't believe it's our last full day in Aiea," Kyle said. "But yeah, the hike. I read that it can get muddy."   
  
"It hasn't rained, though."   
  
"Well, it's a rainforest, Stanley. It might have rained _there_. And what if there are snakes? Last time you and I were together in a rainforest--"  
  
"I was eight!" Stan said.   
  
"Yes, but you're still afraid of snakes. Admit it." Kyle nibbled at Stan's ear, which Stan thought was a little bold for public display, but he leaned into it anyway. "That's why you don't bottom. My big, butch husband. Afraid of snakes."   
  
"I do, too, or I did, when you were willing," Stan said. "You're the one who didn't like topping."   
  
"Oh, God, why am I even talking about this?" Kyle asked, pulling away from Stan. "Our children are right there! Having adorable discussions about fish."   
  
"They can't hear us," Stan said, and he stood, wanting to be privy to those adorable discussions. "Anyway, I know why you're talking about it," he said. "I keep - my mind's been straying, too. It's been a while."   
  
"A week," Kyle said. "Well, almost a week."   
  
"Soon," Stan said as he walked away, turning back to give Kyle what he hoped was a look of devastating seduction. Kyle touched his throat, and Stan chose to believe that he was flushed with lust, not just mild sunburn.  
  
They left soon after that, all in need of a nap, and drove back to the house to shower and sleep through lunch time. Stan woke around three in the afternoon, hungry and achy from deep midday sleep. Kyle was beside him on the pull-out couch, curled up around a pillow. Stan eased it from his grip and replaced it with himself.   
  
"Shh," Kyle said, petting him clumsily, eyes still closed.  
  
"I didn't say anything," Stan whispered.  
  
"My baby," Kyle murmured, and Stan tucked his face to Kyle's neck, not sure that he knew which of his babies he was referring to. Stan couldn't get back to sleep, so he just listened to Kyle's heart beating until Kyle roused a few minutes later, frowning. "Oh, God," he said, touching Stan's face. "I just had the worst dream."   
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You turned into a fish -- or a merman, I guess -- and just swam off. Only you still looked like you. You didn't have fins or anything. And I knew you wouldn't make it, physically. Even though you'd become a fish in your soul."   
  
"Well," Stan said. He hugged Kyle to him, trying not to laugh. "I'd never leave you like that. Even if I did feel like I'd become a fish in my soul."   
  
They got the kids up and grazed on some leftovers from the night before and other snacky things they wanted to finish before leaving for Disney. Kyle set everything up on the umbrella-covered table out on the patio, and Stan basked in the atmosphere, sad that they would be leaving this place. As it approached five o'clock the birds started getting rambunctious, shrieking in the bushes and darting across the deck.   
  
"We're going to Disney next, right?" Topher said.   
  
"Tomorrow!" Kyle said. "Are you guys excited?"  
  
"Yeah," Livy said. "They have a hot tub, right?"  
  
"And a water slide!" Topher said, drumming his hands on the table.   
  
"Affirmative," Kyle said.   
  
"Hasn't it been great so far, though?" Stan asked. "Wasn't today great, with the fish? And yesterday, when we had that whole little island to ourselves?"  
  
"Yes, but Dad," Topher said, grabbing Stan's arm. " _Disney stuff_."  
  
"I am craving the cleanliness," Kyle said, examining the fork he was using. "Especially since it's a brand new resort."  
  
They went to the Aloha Swap Meet before dinner, and most of the vendors were packing up for the day. Their wares were mainly cheap crap that didn't even tempt the kids, but they were able to find a tent with hand-carved tiki figures, the man who was doing the carving sitting on a pillow near his creations, working on something new. He ignored them while they browsed but was very friendly when approached, offering to carve their names into the back of the tiki figures that each of them selected. Stan started to decline, thinking it was cheesy and that would take a long time, but Kyle said yes right away, and it only took the man thirty seconds per name.   
  
"How do you spell Livy?" he asked.  
  
"Actually," she said. "You can put Olive. That's my real name."   
  
"Whoa, wicked," the guy said. He was hugely fat and Stan guessed that he was Samoan, mainly because he was wearing a basketball jersey that said SAMOA on the front. "That's my grandmother's name." He did his carving, and Olive's name looked the prettiest when he was done with all four. He'd done a special flourish at the top of the cursive 'O.'  
  
"Are these haunted or something?" Topher asked when he was holding his in the car. He'd picked the one with the scariest face and big fangs.   
  
"No," Kyle said. "But they do have spiritual significance for the Hawaiians."  
  
"I think that guy was Samoan," Stan said.  
  
"Oh, really?" Kyle gave him a doubtful look. "How could you tell?"  
  
"His shirt said 'Samoa' on it."   
  
"That doesn't necessarily mean he was Samoan," Kyle said.   
  
"No, but he was wearing it with a sort of pride. I could tell."   
  
"You sound nuts right now," Kyle said. "Too much sun exposure or something."  
  
"I need a beer," Stan said, but when he got home he made himself a mai tai with the last of the crappy mix.  
  
They ordered a pizza that night, tired of venturing out to restaurants. The driver ignored the instructions Kyle had given the operator and brought it to the main door upstairs, so their landlady ended up delivering it. Stan gave her cash to cover what she'd given the driver, then awkwardly included a tip, which she tucked into her pocket without comment.  
  
"How have you enjoyed your stay?" she asked.   
  
"It's been great," Kyle said. "Thanks for bringing the pizza!" He took it to the kitchen and started passing it out to the kids, clearly hoping she would leave.   
  
"We went to Hanauma Bay today," Stan said, though he didn't really want to be social with her himself, especially after tipping her like that.   
  
"It's so wonderful," she said, her eyes getting spacey. "I go there whenever I can. But I haven't been in years," she added, as if to refute an accusation of privilege.  
  
After pizza they all fell asleep early, which was for the best, Stan thought, since they would have to get up early for their hike. He woke up at two o'clock in the morning and tried to cuddle with Kyle, but Kyle was dead weight, fast asleep. Since it was their last night with a view of Pearl Harbor, Stan decided to go out onto the patio. He poured himself the last of the rum before stepping outside. It was just a few sips, not enough to make a real drink, but the smell was comforting as he crept out into the night air. The neighborhood was quiet, not a single dog barking. He could see the lights of cars on the highway down below, but they were too far up the hill to hear any traffic noises. The only sound was the rustling of the backyard palm trees when the wind blew.   
  
Stan kept expecting someone to come looking for him, Kyle or one of the kids, whoever had most recently had a dream that he was abandoning them. It was a fear that they all apparently shared. Topher had asked him just last year if he would leave Kyle if he found a good enough girl. He'd been trembling when he asked, as if he was afraid to know what would certainly be true, that Stan was just girl-deprived and therefore settling. Topher was young and had underdeveloped ideas about sexuality; Livy's concerns were more troubling. She apparently felt that the whole family was susceptible to roving murderers if Stan left in the middle of the night for a house call. He didn't have to do that anymore, but he still got the sense that she was jumpy about not having him around, like she thought about it too much. And now there was this preoccupation with the genetic thing. Kyle had always suspected Stan would tire of him, but that was just Kyle. He would usually talk himself out of it before long. Stan turned to look at the sliding glass doors, still shut. He wanted someone to come out so that he could tell them that he wasn't having a midlife crisis.  
  
He went inside when the zebra doves started cooing down in the valley, and was surprised to see that he'd been out on the patio for almost two hours. After a while it had felt like meditation, his anxiety retreating back into the real world that he would have to return to eventually himself. They only had two more nights in Hawaii, both of them Disney-occupied. Stan was looking forward to the hike they would go on in a few hours, and kind of dreading Disney. Other people's children didn't often charm him.   
  
He brushed his teeth and got back into bed with Kyle, who groped for him, making irritable noises. Stan soothed him back into sleep, rubbing his fingers through Kyle's curls. Kyle's brow was pinched, and Stan could only hope he wasn't dreaming of being abandoned by his husband who might decide he was a fish at any time. He wasn't sure how many more years it would take before Kyle believed that Stan would never leave him. They'd already had nearly forty together. Stan pictured them at eighty, stooped and crotchety, even more intolerant of crowds and noise. They'd once made a pact to die at the same time, and Stan was completely serious about it.   
  
Stan was the first out of bed when Kyle's cell phone alarm went off, and it was hard to get the others moving. The doves were still going strong as he herded everyone toward the car, but otherwise the neighborhood was quiet, the sun just starting to come up.  
  
"I've never gotten up this early every day on vacation," Topher said, grumbling this from the backseat as they drove toward Manoa Falls, where they would hike for half an hour to the top, then half an hour back down.   
  
"You've never _been_ on vacation," Livy said. "Like, not for real. Not like this. But seriously, can we sleep late at Disney?"   
  
"Yes," Kyle said. "Absolutely."   
  
"You guys will like this so much better if we get there before the crowds," Stan said. "It'll be magical. I promise. Like the fish!"  
  
"Disney will be magical," Topher said.   
  
"It's a different kind of magic," Stan said.  
  
They parked in a mostly empty lot after some discussion over whether or not they would be towed. Stan took the optimistic side of the argument, while Kyle grumbled that if their car got towed and they didn't make it to their six hundred dollar a night hotel room by check-in time he would never let Stan forget it. Stan tried to ignore everybody else's bad moods, because the place was instantly magical to him: bird calls from the tops of giant trees and a kind of quiet hum from the dark forest trail that led to the falls. The kids perked up a bit when they ran across a rooster, then another, then a whole auxiliary parking lot full of wild chickens.   
  
"My uncle used to have one for a pet," Stan told the kids while Kyle took pictures of what looked like a rooster standoff, two of them staring at each other, motionless, while a hen tensely observed. "Remember Jimbo's rooster?" he asked Kyle.   
  
"Yes," Kyle said. "Didn't he have some random Spanish name?"  
  
"Rodriguez," Stan said. "Jimbo claimed to not remember why he'd named him that. I think it was some kind of Nam thing."   
  
"What's a Nam thing?" Topher asked.  
  
"Vietnam," Livy said. "The war. Jimbo fought in it."   
  
"Sort of," Kyle said.  
  
"It's a long story," Stan said. "Let's go, alright? Looks like we'll have the whole trail to ourselves."  
  
Topher had never been on a real hike before, and he was quickly asking how much longer they had until they reached the top. Stan was mesmerized by the massive, vine-tangled tree trunks, and he tried to remain watchful for birds as they made their way up. He kept hearing a complex birdsong right behind them and turning only in time to see a flash of black and orange feathers.   
  
"Oh, my God," Kyle said when they were about halfway up. "I forgot bug spray!"  
  
"Let's go back!" Topher said.   
  
"No!" Livy said. "Don't be dumb. I'm not getting bitten, Daddy."   
  
"I can hear water up ahead," Kyle said. "And, Jesus, it's so muggy. The mosquitoes will be horrible."  
  
"Mosquitoes bites are temporary," Stan said. "The memories of this majestic waterfall will last you a lifetime."   
  
"Why are you talking like that?" Topher asked. He seemed distressed, or just whiny.   
  
"Mosquitoes carry disease," Kyle said.  
  
"Don't scare the kids," Stan said. "It's not an issue here. C'mon, Kyle, this was my one thing."  
  
"Well, I wasn't even saying we should go back!" Kyle said, marching forward. "Though I really think this is too steep for Toph."   
  
"I can do it," Topher said, and Stan wasn't sure if that comment by Kyle was masterful manipulation or just a happy accident, but Topher didn't complain again until ten minutes later, when they still hadn't reached the top. "It's like work!" he said.   
  
"Shh," Stan said. "Look around you. Take it in."   
  
"Act like an athlete if you want to join the swim team," Kyle said, and that worked. Topher was silent and grim-faced for the rest of the climb.  
  
There was no one else at the top of the trail when they reached the falls, and the majesty of the area was marred somewhat by three huge signs warning people not to go into the lagoon at the bottom, because there had been a rock slide some years before and it was extremely dangerous. Kyle took pictures of the signs, then posed everyone for pictures with the falls in the background.   
  
"Well, alright!" Topher said. "We just go back down now, right?"  
  
"Relax," Kyle said.   
  
"Let's sit for a minute," Stan said, heading over to a stone bench. "To catch our breath." Livy sat beside him and Stan hugged her to his side. He thought he should say something profound and fatherly as they gazed at the falls together, but nothing was coming to mind. They'd all want a shower after this, and the drive to Disney was two hours long. They had already done the check out procedure at the apartment, which was to pile all the dirty towels on the floor and leave the key on the kitchen counter.  
  
"I guess I thought it would be bigger," Topher said. "Like Niagara Falls."   
  
"Then this is a good life lesson," Kyle said, and he turned to look at Stan when he laughed. "I was being serious!" he said.  
  
"I know," Stan said.  
  
Going down made the rocks seem much muddier, and Kyle kept hissing nervously every time Topher took a step. Topher complained about Kyle's attention to his well-being, and then he slipped, causing everyone to gasp with terror. He landed on his butt and seemed to have no injuries. Stan carried him on his back the rest of the way down.   
  
"There he is!" Stan said when he finally spotted the bird he'd heard on the way up. He was singing in an showy way that seemed self-aware, cycling through shrill and melodic notes while he kept an eye on them. He had a black head, orange breast, and a long, white tail. All of them stayed still and silent until his song truncated in an angry screech and he took off.   
  
"That was like a Disney thing, Dad," Topher said, whispering this to Stan when they started walking again, Kyle lamenting the fact that he hadn't gotten a picture. "Like how the animals come and talk to you."   
  
"Yeah, it really was," Stan said, okay with this compromise.   
  
Toward the end of the trail they started running into a lot of hikers who were on their way up, and Stan felt newly smug about his decision to make the trip early. Their car had not been towed, and the wild chickens were still everywhere, roosters crowing while some light green parrots screamed from the tree tops.   
  
"The zoom on this thing is so crappy!" Kyle said, leaning back to try to get a picture of the parrots. They were so high up in the trees that Kyle nearly fell over backward while he aimed the camera at them, and Stan had to catch him, steadying his shoulders.  
  
"I feel like we were on another planet," Livy said, looking back toward the trail as more mid-morning hikers headed toward it.   
  
"We were!" Stan said.   
  
"No, we were not," Topher said, looking confused, like maybe they had been and he'd missed something.  
  
"He means figuratively," Kyle said. "Not literally."   
  
"It's more like another world," Stan said. "That's a better term for it, maybe."   
  
"Yeah," Livy said. "That's what I mean."   
  
"Dad?" Topher said when they were in the car.   
  
"Yeah?" Stan was fussing with the satellite radio while Kyle adjusted the air conditioning vents.   
  
"It's like –" Topher said, looking out the window. "Sometimes – you don't like the normal world that much. Do you?"  
  
"Topher, don't be dumb," Livy said.   
  
"No, he's not wrong," Kyle said. "All adults feel that way, honey. The normal world can be frustrating."  
  
But it was more than frustrating for Stan, once, and even Topher could see it, even now. Stan felt like he was sitting across from his ten-year-old self in Mackey's office, being asked to explain those indistinct but razor sharp feelings away with something solid and reassuring.  
  
"I just feel this connection to places like that, to nature," Stan said. "That I don't always feel in, like. Stores, in towns. But, you know, that said. You guys want McDonalds for breakfast?"  
  
They did.   
  
The drive to Aulani seemed to pass quickly, maybe because the scenery was beautiful and the kids were satisfied, bellies full of McBreakfast. When they could see the resort in the distance, Kyle actually started clapping. Disney had tried to model the place after traditional Hawaiian architecture, apparently. To Stan the main buildings looked like giant canoes that had been cut in half. They had to give their name to a security guy at the main gate. Stan found this annoying, as if everyone was under suspicion of not being privileged enough to belong here, but when they pulled up to the front lobby he realized that the guy had just asked for their name so he could radio the ass kissing valets and tell them how to personally address them. Kyle smiled when they called Stan 'Mr. Broflovski.' He'd made the reservation in his name.  
  
"Is this your first time staying with us?" the valet who'd attached himself to them asked as he led them toward the front desk. He'd glommed on to Kyle as if he was obviously in charge here, and Stan supposed, in their current surroundings, he was.  
  
"Well, its the kids' first time at a Disney property," Kyle said. "My husband and I stayed at that New Orleans resort in Orlando years ago, on our honeymoon."   
  
"Ah, yeah, happy anniversary!" the valet said, beaming.   
  
"Oh, thank you!" Kyle gave Stan a look, and as soon as the valet was gone he gathered everyone together. "I may have told them, when I made the reservation, that it's my fortieth birthday and our twentieth wedding anniversary. Just go with it."   
  
"Why?" Livy asked.  
  
"They give you free stuff, sometimes," Stan said, winking at her.   
  
"Precisely," Kyle said, and he marched over to the striking young woman who was waiting for them at the check-in desk. She also congratulated them on their anniversary, and Kyle on his birthday.   
  
"You must have been quite young when you got married!" she said, the kind of thing that would probably be offensive if said to a straight couple.   
  
"We were twenty," Kyle said. "This birthday – it's my fortieth!"   
  
"Oh, how special!" she said, and she actually seemed to mean it, which was eerie. "We're so honored that you've chosen to spend your special day with us!" Stan hoped she wouldn't ask to see Kyle's driver's license. Neither story was far off the mark; they would both turn forty next year, and their twentieth wedding anniversary would be two years later. They were twenty-two when they got married, and four years later Shelly was pregnant with Livy. Thinking about all the decisions they'd made so rashly as kids made Stan twitchy now. They were both prone to anxiety, but they'd never questioned marrying young, having the kids, starting the company. Stan had barely questioned selling it, but he was glad he had, because he didn't want to give this moment up. The kids and Kyle were bouncing with glee as they took in their surroundings. The place was admittedly impressive, a kind of chandelier of giant lanterns hanging over the soaring lobby, stained glass panels glowing in the windows. Everything was indeed very clean, and the public areas were festive but tasteful, Kyle's favorite combination of traits. Stan wondered if that was how Kyle thought of him.  
  
"Damn," Stan said when they walked into the room. It looked like exactly six hundred dollars, which to him was still a lot of money. The doors to the balcony were open, translucent white curtains blowing in the breeze. The décor was expensively understated and everything looked brand new, untouched. There was a birthday cupcake for Kyle on the desk, and a bottle of cheap champagne in a bucket of ice. A hand-written card wished them a happy anniversary, and there were fresh cut flowers in a heavy glass vase. Stan was beginning to feel guilty about the anniversary fib, but he supposed they had earned all of this one way or another, or paid for it, anyway. Someone had turned the flat screen TV on, and it was tuned to a station that was playing soft Hawaiian music over pictures of beaches and tropical flowers.  
  
"I told you we're rich now!" Topher said to Livy when they were all surveying the ocean view from the balcony.   
  
"We're not rich," Kyle said. "It's just a special occasion." He popped the cap of the champagne bottle off and drank from the overflowing bottle, which was hilarious to Topher.   
  
"You're sending conflicting messages here," Stan said, and he took a picture of Kyle with his champagne bottle. "Let's all sing happy birthday to Daddy," he said, and they did. Kyle laughed and drank from the bottle again. His actual birthday had been a few months before, and he'd cried in Stan's arms in lieu of birthday night sex, saying that he hadn't aged gracefully. Stan thought he had. He still looked at Kyle and saw a pissy kid who he wanted to be closer to all the time, shoulders touching at least.   
  
They put on their swim suits and went down to check out the pool area. Stan felt immediately overwhelmed by the place, which was like a mini-theme park. Topher was in heaven, and Livy seemed pleased, too, possibly because Kyle had bought her a tankini in Waikiki that was more -ini than tank and she was wearing it for the first time. The beach was really three man-made lagoons, and there was a couple having wedding pictures taken near the one that adjoined the Disney property. The bride was tiny and Asian, the skirt of her huge white dress billowing behind her in the wind. Kyle took a picture, discreetly. They had only a few from their own wedding, which was really just a weekend in New York with Ike as their witness and co-best man. Stan had wanted to bring Kenny and have him as their other best man, but Kenny couldn't afford the trip, and they could barely afford their own tickets. They'd stayed with Kyle's relatives, and their wedding night sex was very quiet, on a couch in Sheila's sister's apartment, Broflovski family pictures hanging on the wall overhead. Stan had gotten emotional over the only one of Kyle, sitting in a row of cousins and looking miserable, wearing his little green hat.   
  
"When that picture was taken," Stan had said when they were lying together afterward, half-dressed, under a quilt that smelled like fried potatoes, "Did you think it would ever be looking down on you and your husband, Stan Marsh, on your wedding night, while your marriage was consummated?"  
  
"Yes," Kyle had said, and Stan laughed, but Kyle seemed serious.


	4. Chapter 4

Stan got a piña colada from the poolside bar and tried to relax while the others reveled in Disney-style magic. Everything was cute and well-designed, but something about the place made him feel too white, too American, and too gay. He did the lazy river with the kids and let Kyle take them up the stairs to the volcano water slide. There were a couple of hot tubs, and the best one faced the beach, a two-tiered thing with an infinity edge on both levels. Stan was glad to find that it wasn't too crowded, and also relieved to see what appeared to be a grouchy, middle-aged lesbian couple sitting together in companionable silence on the bottom level. Kyle was always going on about how gay-friendly Disney was. Stan sat on the top level of the hot tub and watched the ocean as the sun sunk a little lower, still hot and bright but not as brutal. He told himself that his fifteen hundred bucks was at least supporting an allegedly gay-friendly company. Kyle had once written an open letter to Disney suggesting that they had a moral responsibility to eventually do a movie about a gay prince. He posted it online and had something like two hundred thousand "signatures" from people who liked the idea.  
  
Only when a dad and his young son got in did Stan realize he must look kind of creepy, an almost forty-year-old guy hanging out in a Disney pool alone. He stayed anyway, because he'd told Kyle and the kids to meet him there when they were done with the slide.   
  
"This isn't as hot as our jacuzzi at home," the dad said to the kid, and something about his tone was deeply annoying, like he was trying to sell the kid on the idea of his family's wealth, or just wanted to make sure the creepy guy sitting alone knew he was accomplished enough to own a hot tub.   
  
"When is mom going to be done?" the kid asked.  
  
"I'm not sure," the dad said. "She's having a spa day. That's the full day. Even meals." He seemed to be directing this to Stan for some reason, but Stan refused to look at him. He was relieved when Kyle and the kids arrived, and would have made a point to kiss Kyle in front of the home jacuzzi douchebag, but he wasn't in the habit of forcing people to explain homosexuality to their six-year-olds.   
  
"That slide was pretty good," Topher said, splashing his way over to Stan. "Can we do the lazy river again?"   
  
"Let's do the regular pool for a minute," Stan said. "I need to cool off. Your sister can take you on the lazy river if you want to go again." He gave Livy a pleading look, and she smiled.   
  
The dad and son from the hot tub followed them into the big pool after a few minutes, and Stan kept an eye on them, annoyed by his awareness of their proximity. The guy was puny and balding, the kid a little spindly but cute. Stan floated near Kyle while the kids did underwater flips and handstands, waiting for a comment or a long, disapproving look. The dad seemed like that kind of guy. An old lady in South Park had walked up to them at the grocery store when Livy was a baby, riding in a carrier on Kyle's chest, and told them they'd ruined that child's life.   
  
"That's really nice, lady," Kyle said. "Enjoy dying alone and afraid in the coming years."   
  
She'd asked the store manager to call the police, saying Kyle had threatened her life. It was a trying afternoon.   
  
"We should go exploring," Stan said. "I mean, around the actual beach area. Kyle – isn't there some place where you can see turtles?"  
  
"Yeah, over near the Marriott somewhere," Kyle said, gesturing to the neighboring resort. "We can always do that tomorrow. I kind of just want to relax." He gave Stan a meaningful look, and Stan realized Kyle meant to have stealthy sex with him today, soon.   
  
"This is a little bigger than our pool, isn't it?" the douchebag guy said to his kid, loudly. "But we've got a salt water pool. I don't know if this one is salt water. It's probably not."   
  
"What the fuck is that fucker's problem?" Stan asked, giving the guy a dirty look. He either didn't notice or was too much of a chickenshit to look back.   
  
"What – who?" Kyle asked. He elbowed Stan. "Don't cuss so much, dude. There's a little kid over there."  
  
"Yeah, I'm talking about his father. He's a douchebag."   
  
"Huh? That bald guy?" Kyle hung on Stan's shoulders, staring. "What'd he do?"  
  
"He's talking about his hot tub and his pool like – who is he trying to impress, his six-year-old? It's pissing me off."   
  
The guy looked in Stan's direction, and Stan gave him an unflinching stare that made him turn away. Stan was bigger than him, and he felt every inch of it as the guy ushered his kid toward the stairs.   
  
"Jesus Christ, Stan!" Kyle said, but he was grinning. "What – are you trying to pick a fight in the goddamn volcano pool?"  
  
"Maybe," Stan said, turning his dangerous look on Kyle. He smirked when Kyle's eyes widened. "I just hate guys like that," he said. "You know – you know how I am."   
  
"Yeah – Liv?" Kyle called. "Can you watch your brother while we take care of something in the room? The bathroom facet was leaking. I want to make sure they fixed it."   
  
"Why does Dad have to go?" Topher asked.   
  
"I'm gonna take an Advil while Daddy sees about the sink," Stan said. "That muscle I pulled is bugging me a little. Livy, do not let him out of your sight, you understand?"  
  
"Yeah, I know," she said.  
  
"I mean it," Stan said. "Topher, stay with your sister. And don't leave the pool area."  
  
"What if I have to pee?" Topher asked.  
  
"Do it in the pool," Stan said.   
  
"Oh, God," Kyle said, but he was already heading for the stairs.  
  
"We'll be right back," Stan said. He felt a little nervous leaving them, but there were about eight lifeguards for every kid, and Livy babysat for Topher on a regular basis at home. He caught up to Kyle and took his hand as they headed away from the pool, crossing the lazy river on a little bridge. Kyle grinned at him.   
  
"Stan," he said. "You could have kicked that guy's ass."  
  
"I know," he said. "And Toph could have taken his kid, but I didn't really have an issue with him."  
  
"So, let's do this quick," Kyle said, and they speed walked toward the elevators. As soon as the elevator doors were closed Stan pressed Kyle to the wall and licked into his mouth, moaning at the taste of his champagne tongue.   
  
"Mhmm," Kyle said when Stan pulled back. "Coconut."  
  
"Piña colada."  
  
"Of course."  
  
They were running for real on the way to the room, laughing like idiots, and as soon as they were inside they started scrambling out of their wet bathing suits. Stan dashed to the bathroom for the little bottle of lotion he'd spotted earlier.   
  
"It's bamboo lavender," he said when he returned to the bedroom, tossing it to Kyle.  
  
"How delightfully absurd," Kyle said. "Did you put the 'Do Not Disturb' on the door?"  
  
"Oh, fuck, forgot." Stan dashed to do it. When he came back Kyle was naked, on his back on the bed, his knees spread while he fingered himself. "Dude," Stan said, grabbing his cock when it throbbed, though it wasn't like he was going to come just from this. "Let me do that."   
  
"You take too long," Kyle said, twisting his fingers into himself. His feet were arched, his toes curled over the edge of the mattress. "I don't like leaving them down there with all those strangers. Get your dick wet."  
  
"Wet?"  
  
"You know what I mean!"   
  
Stan did, and he slicked his cock with the lotion, crawling on top of Kyle. They kissed, and Stan sucked at Kyle's neck, not hard enough to leave incriminating marks but skillfully enough to make Kyle grab a handful of Stan's hair and pull. He leaned back to watch Kyle's face while he opened himself, momentarily resisting the urge to push his tongue into Kyle's panting mouth.   
  
"Fuck me," Kyle said. "So hard, Stan, make me scream."   
  
The TV was still playing soft music, still showing peaceful Hawaiian landscapes. It seemed slightly sacrilegious, but Stan didn't have the time or presence of mind to turn it off. He needed to be inside Kyle, badly, and he groaned when he reached down to feel him.  
  
"Did you do a good job?" Stan asked, teasing him with his fingertips. "Are you ready for me?"  
  
"Mhm, yeah," Kyle said, nodding. "Please, hurry." He was pulling at Stan's forearms. "I need it. You _know_ I need it. Just the smell of you makes me hard when I need you this much."   
  
"Alright," Stan said, lining up. He could feel his slamming heartbeat in his ear lobes, everywhere. "I hope you're right, 'cause I'm gonna pound you, dude, gonna pound your fucking ass."   
  
"Yuh, yeah." Kyle couldn't seem to stop nodding, but he went still when Stan slid into him, his eyes dropping shut. "Oh," said. "Oh, yeah, that's—" He stopped trying to articulate it and just drooled. Stan bent down to kiss him, Kyle's heat rolling over him in waves as sunk in deeper. Kyle hadn't done a very thorough job of prepping himself. He was so tight, squeezing around Stan until he forgot where they were.   
  
"You," Stan said, breathing into Kyle's mouth. "You're so—"  
  
"Yes, I know I'm tight," Kyle said. "Just fuck me, dude, don't wait. I can't wait." He sounded like he might cry. Stan pulled back and gave him a long, slow thrust that seemed to infuriate him. Kyle whined and squirmed, pressing his hips up. Stan could only tease him for a few seconds before he started fucking him hard, and Kyle groaned, nodding again, his head thrown back.   
  
"You like that?" Stan asked. The bed was knocking against the wall, and Kyle was jerking himself like he was going to come already.   
  
"God," Kyle said, groaning. "I fucking love it. _Stan_. Fuck me like you bought me with the room."   
  
"Who's my little rent boy?" Stan asked, tugging on his curls.   
  
"Me," Kyle cried. "I am."   
  
They'd made a competition of who could say the stupidest things during sex years ago, and it was hardly a joke anymore, just a free pass to put whatever crossed their minds right the fuck out there.   
  
"Mhm, yeah," Stan said, lowering his face to Kyle's neck. "So worth it, fuck yeah. This sweet fucking ass – worth every penny." He was going to come, and he didn't want to, because they wouldn't be able to do this again until they got home.   
  
"Put me on the floor," Kyle said, jacking his cock and groping for the lotion with his other hand. "On – on all fours, push my face down on the carpet and hold my ass up for your dick, please, please."  
  
Kyle didn't really need to beg; Stan picked him up and lowered him to the floor, turning him onto his hands and knees. Kyle was thoughtful enough to yank the comforter down with them, and when he came he managed to spare the carpet, holding the comforter against his dick, humping the 700-count cotton. Stan came almost immediately after him, pinning Kyle completely to the floor. Kyle panted against the carpet while Stan gave him sloppy kisses on the cheek, still pumping his hips as the very last of everything he'd saved up for a week trickled into Kyle.   
  
"God," Stan said. "What – what have we done to this room?"  
  
"I'll call for them to change the bedsheets," Kyle said. "Just give me a second."   
  
"Kay." Stan pulled out of him and rolled him into his arms, checking his cheek for carpet burn. His skin was red, but the sun he'd gotten throughout the week mostly masked it. Stan licked him there, tasting carpet fibers, and Kyle grinned.  
  
"I just couldn't come to Hawaii and not have sex with you while we were here," Kyle said. "You understand."   
  
"Absolutely." Stan wanted to go again, but he wouldn't be able to get it up, too worried about the kids down there on their own, and it wasn't such an easy feat anyway, now that he was almost forty. "I was thinking about our wedding night," he said. "The couch sex at your aunt's place. That picture of you in your green hat."   
  
"You're always thinking about this stuff, apparently," Kyle said. "But it's sweet, Stan, you're so sweet. Who could deserve you? I don't even feel guilty anymore."   
  
"Guilty?"  
  
"Like I'm keeping you from someone else, someone who could match you, but no one could, nobody fucking deserves you."   
  
"Ah," Stan said. He sat up on the ruined comforter and looked around the room, ukulele music from the TV wafting over his head. "I think I have to quit my job," he said.  
  
"What do you mean?" Kyle asked, and he sat up, too. There was nothing Stan liked better than Kyle when he was naked and sitting with his legs splayed awkwardly, his hands in his lap, cock soft and sticky. He put his hand on Kyle's ankle and sighed.  
  
"You're right," Stan said. "I don't like the new job. I hate going there every day, and it's starting to make me hate waking up in the morning. I don't want to keep getting angrier until I'm back to you know where. That poor asshole in the pool – that shouldn't bother me as much as it does."  
  
"Stan – honey." Kyle rubbed his back, frowning. "I'm sure a lot of people come to Hawaii and decide they don't want to go back to their real lives. Let's talk about this when we're at home."  
  
"No," Stan said. "I know I'm right about this. Now that we've paid off our debt, I don't have to feel bad about it. I don't want to feel bad about it, Kyle. I need to do this. I'm serious."   
  
Kyle stood up and put his bathing suit back on. He went over to the half-empty champagne bottle, which was sitting uncorked in the melted ice.   
  
"So what would you do?" Kyle asked, grabbing the champagne bottle by the neck. "Instead, I mean. We might have eliminated the debts, but we've got a lot of expenses, Stan. The kids have zero in the way of college savings, and I really want Livy to go to a private high school next year, and Toph probably needs to be in some kind of special school, too, fuck, his grades are horrible, they're going to hold him back—"  
  
"I could write a book," Stan said. "A gay novel, like you said."   
  
"Stan, that was—" Kyle stopped short of saying it was a joke, holding his hand over his eyes. "Okay," he said. "Okay, no, you should. You've certainly contributed more to our cause than I have. Sure, okay, write a novel." He drank from the champagne bottle.   
  
"Our cause?" Stan said.  
  
"Our family! Put your bathing suit back on, let's go. I don't want to leave them down there for the full duration of – this discussion."   
  
Stan cleaned his cock on the comforter and got up to put his suit on. Kyle called down to room service and asked for a new set of sheets for one of the beds in their room. Stan piled the comforter back onto the bed, hoping they hadn't been too conspicuous. He watched Kyle drink the rest of the champagne.   
  
"Well, fuck," Kyle said, dropping the empty bottle back into the melted ice. "You would be kind of a novelty as a romance writer. You're this butch lumberjack type who made a living as an exterminator. I bet we could sell that, actually."   
  
"You think I'm like a lumberjack?" Stan said, flattered.   
  
"From afar," Kyle said. "I mean, to the lay person."   
  
"So, to people who aren't actual lumberjacks."   
  
"Yes. To everyone else I suspect you're close enough. Oh, God, Stan."   
  
"I know," Stan said, and he put his hand out. "But it'll be okay, I promise. I wouldn't do it if I didn't know it was right."   
  
"I don't want you to be sad, that's – I'll do anything to stop that from happening," Kyle said. He hurried into Stan's arms and hugged him, standing up on his tip-toes. They'd both left their flip flops at the pool in their haste. "I need you to be okay," Kyle said when he pulled back.  
  
"I am okay," Stan said. "Jesus, I feel better already. Just saying all this."   
  
"Well, I need you to be more than okay, actually," Kyle said. "I need you to be ecstatically happy, and I need to be able to credit myself."   
  
"You can," Stan said. "For everything good, I mean."   
  
"What the hell are you going to write about?" Kyle asked when they walked to the elevators, holding hands.   
  
"I don't know," Stan said. "You. Or, like, this couple who've known each other since they were in pre-school, and they take forever to get together, and when they do they're too scared to talk about it, so the one guy thinks the other one thinks it's not serious, but eventually they get married and have kids—"  
  
"No, no," Kyle said. "That's all wrong. I'll think up a plot for you. It's got to be tragic, for one thing. And they can't end up together with a couple of kids."  
  
"Wha – why not?"  
  
"'Cause that's too perfect," Kyle said, and the elevator arrived with a ding. Kyle grinned when Stan squeezed his hand.   
  
The kids were swimming under the bridge that crossed the lazy river as Stan and Kyle walked over it. They waved, and Kyle moaned about not having the camera.   
  
"This is our third time going around!" Topher shouted as the water pushed them along. "It's getting boring!" he said, and Stan was touched. Tomorrow they would find sea turtles. It would be magical.


End file.
